When NSA met APW: Love at first (web)site

 
Hello all, and happy spring! The lovebirds are singing, the jacarandas and bougainvilleas are in bloom all over the city, and we’re blooming with excitement over our just–launched collaboration with A Practical Wedding.
 

 
A Practical Wedding (or APW, for short) is so much more than just a wedding-planning website. For soon-to-be-wed couples, it is an island of sanity floating in a sea of ridiculousness. Amid the myriad blogs featuring staged “inspiration shoots” of fake nuptials, the thousands of aspirational Pinterest boards, the endlessly posted “rules” of proper wedding etiquette, and all the companies trying to cash in on the belief that a wedding must cost a fortune in order to be worthy, stands the bastion of common sense that is APW.
 
The site is as much a community as it is a blogging platform, an online town square filled with feminist, forward-thinking, LGBT-friendly individuals searching for more meaningful discussions about marriage. APW was founded on the principle that a wedding should be about the marriage of two people, not about how much you spent on the cake or whether or not your bridesmaids all wore the same color dress. It stands as an alternative to the money and “tradition” driven standards promoted by the wedding media. The wonderfully edited blog features intelligent and eloquent essays by real people about the (often messy) reality of planning a wedding, and also about other topics relating to life, love, family and coupledom.
 
The website also features helpful resources, including a vendor directory featuring businesses who support this feminist, down-to-earth ethos. That’s where we come in. We’re proud to announce that we are now one of APW’s featured vendors! As you all know, we have a gorgeous collection of truly unique jewelry, which we source from designers all around the U.S. and beyond. We’ve now been in the business of helping couples find the perfect engagement and wedding rings for thirty-three years. There’s nothing quite like the high we get when helping people who are giddy with love and excitement over their pending nuptials, and who want to find wedding jewelry as unique as their romance. Now that we’re online, we want to give that same experience to couples who might not be lucky enough to live near a store with such unusual, one of a kind options.
 

 
In cementing our partnership with APW, we declared our own vows of sorts. Each vendor on the site must agree to a Sanity Pledge, which we undertook with pride.
 
The Sanity Pledge is as follows:
 
– A wedding is an awesome party, but it’s the marriage that really matters.
 
– It takes two people to get married. It’s not all about the bride (and sometimes there isn’t a bride to begin with).
 
– We support LGBTQ couples right to marry, and we are delighted to work with them.
 
– We will be upfront and fair about our pricing. We won’t surprise you with a secret fee because you want frosting on the cake, not just the cake.
 
– However you decided to tie the knot, we’re on your team.
 
– I agree to conduct my business in a way that upholds the best business practices of my profession.
 

 
In addition, we at New Stone Age believe:
 
– that true love cannot be measured in diamond carats or gold purity
 
– that not everyone wants to wear a huge white diamond on her (or his) finger
 
– that an engagement ring shouldn’t have to cost an arm and a leg
 
– that there are many, many (beautiful and sparkly) ways to wear a wedding ring
 
 
We are so excited to embark on this new relationship with a website, resource and community that we deeply admire, and we know that it will introduce us to just the kind of strong, down-to-earth, unique and beautiful couples that we love to work with. Check out A Practical Wedding if you’re engaged, and even if you’re married, divorced or single – seriously, there are insightful discussions going on, intelligent people having them, and real talk about real life issues. Your friendly New Stone Age blogger found APW when she was planning her own wedding last year, and as a married woman she still reads the blog often. It’s that good. Also, check out their lovely blog post all about us, penned by APW’s digital director and style editor, Maddie Eisenhart. We’re blushing!
 

 
To celebrate our new partnership, we’ve made it easier than ever to find the perfect rings with which to celebrate yours, and we’re adding new beautiful wedding and engagement rings every day. Here are a few combinations we’re currently obsessing over:
 

 
Are you in love yet? We are.