"The Tiniest Bridegroom, and Tales of Other Famous Wedding Rings"

You may think you've heard of "robbing the cradle," but this story takes the cake. Journey with us, Dear Reader, back to a time when England's King Henry VIII was still married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and Britain was as Catholic as the Pope. In 1518, it occurred to said King that it was high time that his heir, Princess Mary, got hitched. This being the case, he soon arranged an advantageous match with Dauphin Francis, son of King Francis I of (where else?) France. Historians disagree about whether the ceremony held in October of that year was a betrothal or an actual wedding, but most make mention of the specially-made diamond ring that was placed on Mary's finger as the proud families looked on.

Except that it wasn't Little Frankie who slid the ring home; he couldn't even stand up, because he'd just been born the previous February. His blushing bride-by-proxy was less than two years older than he was. Wedding ring or promise ring, it's no wonder that the relationship failed after just three years -- after all, when you've got all the dolls a five-rear-old princess could ever want, how can a drooling toddler even compare?

All the way back

By the time King Henry decided that two was a good marrying age, wedding rings had been an established Western tradition for well over a thousand years. There's some evidence, according to a few monkish groups in the Church, that Joseph gave Mary (yes, that Mary) a ring crowned with amethyst or onyx to celebrate their marriage. Whatever the case, in the 12th century, Pope Innocent III made wedding rings a required part of any ceremony performed by the Catholic Church (which was basically all of them, back then). There were never any stipulations about what the ring had to be made of, so for several hundred years iron rings were as common as gold or diamond wedding rings, and in the 1700s one cheapskate Duke used a bed-curtain ring. Could you imagine getting away with that now?

Modern glitz

In the modern era, wedding bands and wedding rings are typically outshone by their bling-bling predecessors, the engagement rings; however, there's been no dearth of noteworthy wedding rings to drool over this century. Take, for example, one King's wedding gift to his bride back in May 1967. We're talking about the King of Rock and Roll, of course, and his girlfriend, Priscilla Beaulieu; Elvis presented her with a 3.5-carat white diamond surrounded with 21 smaller stones.

In April 2005, a man who would be king (if his Mom will ever let him), one Charles Windsor, went the more understated route when he and long-time companion Camilla Parker-Bowles donned matching custom-made 22-karat gold bands. Then there's cheesecake singer Jessica Simpson, who sported a true treasure of a wedding ring during her brief marriage to boy-band crooner Nick Lachey. Picture, if you will, a pear-shaped, two-carat white sparkler flanked by two smaller blue diamonds, for a total of 3.5 carats, all crammed together on a solid platinum band. It's enough to make you wish you had an extra few million lying around!

Or how about that $1.5 million vision of gem-studded loveliness the latest Mrs. Donald Trump, Melania Knauss, received in January 2005? Those 15 emerald-cut white diamonds may have set The Donald back more than a megabuck, but you can get a replica only an expert could spot for as little as $700. What are you waiting for?

Published with permission (FCDMInc)