‘Story behind our rings is icing on the cake’: Couple make their own wedding rings at Cork workshop 

Planning a wedding should be a time of excitement, but for many couples, it can be stressful and costly. Between all the decisions, tastings and fittings, there aren’t many opportunities to slow down and make meaningful memories together.

But some couples are doing things a little differently, and a new workshop at Benchspace Cork is attracting soon-to-be newlyweds who want to take time out from the planning to craft their own unique wedding bands under the guidance of an experienced jeweller.

Benchspace Cork is a social enterprise with studio spaces and shared professional workshops. They run long and short courses in woodwork, fine metalwork and digital fabrication for makers of all levels.

This three-hour ring-making workshop for couples is led by Fabio Oliveira, the Brazilian jeweller behind Mo Ghrian jewellery. Having originally studied law, Oliveira began learning the craft of jewellery-making in 2020 when he moved to Cork.

“When I moved to Ireland, I decided to give my creative side a chance to flourish,” he says. “Having done a jeweller course at St John’s College, I found Benchspace. It was a place where I could practice and develop my jeweller skills.”

As well as honing his craft, Oliveira began teaching courses and classes.

“I love talking and passing on everything I know… I have different classes there, and the couples class is one of my favourites, to be honest,” he says. “I feel that I’m a little part of their journey, and it’s a very special moment.”

The workshop attracts couples who are engaged, as well as those who are together for many years, who might be renewing their vows, replacing lost rings, or who never married but want to make a symbolic gesture of their commitment.

“I have couples that are married for 20 or 30 years… and they just want to renew their vows or to share a moment together… Or some people that are together for a very long time… they never got married officially, and then they suddenly decide ‘we want to do because we are creating something together’,” he says.

“It’s also for people that unfortunately lost their rings. I’ve had couples come if one of them has lost their ring. I’ve had students that came by themselves, just one person, to remake the ring that they lost.”

During the workshop, participants learn to make a bespoke ring from scratch. They can choose a normal wedding band with a polished or mirrored finish, a diamond finish, which is matted with sparkly texture, or a hammered design. “The only thing that they don’t do is basically melt down the metal,” Oliveira says.

“They start with a metal wire - it can be silver or gold - and from there, [they learn] all the steps, from measuring, cutting to soldering and polishing.”

The sessions are open to all, and Oliveira wants to reassure people that no prior experience or creative skill is necessary. “I get people saying: ‘Look, I’m really bad… I’ve never done any craft before, and I have two left hands’... and everyone always finishes their rings beautifully. Everyone’s very happy,” he says.

As well as creating a beautiful piece of jewellery, the workshop offers couples a chance to make lasting memories. “It’s very easy to go to a shop and just order a piece, but when you are making your own thing… then it’s a shared moment,” says Oliveira. “It’s easier to forget something that you bought than something that you made.”

Orla Healy, from Clonakilty, and her fiancé Brian Healy, from Churchtown, took part in a workshop in February. They are getting married in the Civil Registration Office in August, and following that with a party in the Lifeboat Inn in Courtmacsherry in September.

“We kind of wanted to separate the two, [as] we wanted something low key and low stress,” says Healy. 

“We’ve been engaged for three years, and I think part of the reason we’ve been taking so long is how intimidating the whole process is, and just identifying a way to do it that suited us.”

As a keen crafter, Healy was drawn to the workshop as a chance to learn something new, and share a creative experience with her husband-to-be.

“I love crafting, so I’ve been keeping an eye on Benchspace for a while now, and looking for reasons to go,” she says. “When [the workshop] came up on Valentine’s Day, it was a no- brainer… It ticked a load of boxes. The idea that we’d get to make it for ourselves and have that process be part of the wedding planning was really cool. No matter how the ring turned out, it was special.”

Healy found the idea of making her own metal ring daunting, she found that Oliveira completely put her at ease. “It was brilliant from the moment we walked in. The instructor was so attentive,” she says. “It was quite intimidating, the idea of using an open flame to solder metal for the first time ever. He took each of us, person by person, through each step and he gave us loads of different options for the metal types we could use. He really took to heart the idea that we were making this for ourselves and that there would be a story behind it.”

Having never made jewellery before, Healy was prepared for something to go wrong or for the finished rings to be of a lower standard than a shop-bought band. She believed the workshop was very reasonably priced at €250 per couple, and that whatever happened, they would have a good story to tell and an enjoyable experience together. However, the result far surpassed her expectations.

“We made peace with the fact that if they were janky, if the rings turned out badly, it was a skills issue, but it would be a story,” she says.

“But because of how slow we took it, and how attentive [Oliveiro] was to each of the six people there, you could see everybody’s faces light up as the rings appeared. They were perfect, each and every one of them. They were all slightly different, [with] different metals. But everybody ended up with this genuinely shop-quality ring that we could each take pride in.”

One of the elements they enjoyed about the session was the chance to meet like-minded people going through the wedding planning process.

“Because we’re doing things a little bit untraditional, it was our first time really talking to other couples. And it actually turned out that the two couples we were with also had very similar plans… low key, non-‘big Irish wedding’ vibes. So it was really nice to actually talk to other couples about their plans.”

Healy recommends the workshop to anyone looking for something unique to do together in the lead-up to their wedding.

“No one will ever have that style of ring, have that embellishment you were able to put onto that ring. To have the story to come away with it as well is just the icing on the cake,” she says.

“It’s just enjoyable to learn a new skill and to have something that hopefully I’ll wear for the rest of my life, that I can say I made.”

• See www.benchspacecork.ie.