Custom-made, unique rings for weddings and other special occasion statement jewelry can be found and created year-round at a number of small businesses in Leelanau County.
The wedding ring, a symbol of enduring love and loyalty, is a special memento that stays with you for the rest of your life, so its final look and presentation is something that local jewelers put countless hours of work into to perfect every detail.
From the tip of the peninsula in Northport to Glen Arbor and Elmwood township, one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces are created at trusted businesses that have been in the community for years.
At Northport Trading Post in downtown Northport, Scot and Jennifer Wack have been creating wedding rings since 2021, specializing in custom inlay designs using natural stones from the area. Their designs, which utilize metals like titanium, tungsten, and cobalt, have incorporated everything from Yooperlite stones from the upper peninsula to Petoskey and Leland blue stones. Each ring comes from the inspiration of the bride and groom’s preferences, who they work closely with before and during the creation process.
“The best part about doing that is I can use their stones to inlay into the ring, which makes it much more personal,” Wack said. “Stones become a part of you when you find them, it just becomes sentimental value. I still got stones in the store that I know exactly who I was with, what beach I was at, what time of year it was… It becomes very special and it becomes very personal when it’s your stone that’s laid inside the ring, especially if you’re a couple and you found those stones together.”
Usually when people are looking to have custom wedding rings made, Wack said they already have an idea in mind, so he and Jennifer go off of that and broaden the idea by giving them options on how they can achieve the particular look. It takes Wack about two weeks to finish a custom inlay ring design, which can feature different inlay styles such as a double inlay or one straight inlay along the band. Within the inlays, multiple stones like the popular Petoskey, Leland blues, Yooperlites, and even beach sand have been incorporated into rings, but again, it’s all about the preference of the couple they’re serving.
Wack recommends using brighter, colorful stones for inlay designs so the pattern remains more vibrant rather than opaque. If someone has special stones they’d like to use for the ring, The Trading Post can work with what the individual has, but if the customer doesn’t have any stones of their own, there’s plenty of options to choose from at the store. The Leland blue inlay designs are the most popular, Wack explained, but he also has the ability to add specific opals as accent colors to the overall piece. Those interested in ordering custom jewelry sets for weddings can also do so at the store. Jennifer has previously made jewelry sets for the whole wedding party, including creating matching earrings, pendants, hair pins, and even Leland blue cufflinks for groomsmen.
“It comes down to the personal want and what they’re looking for and what their idea of the ring would look like… Everyone has their own idea and their own look that they want the ring to be, and I kind of lean on them to push me, and then once they push me, I take off and go,” Wack said. “So I can run the gamut of colors and I can kind of mesh the feel of the stone. If it’s a Petoskey stone, we can inlay something that’s a little more earthy to it. If it’s more of a Leland Blue or Yooperlite, we can get some orange in there and some glow powders in there... There’s lots of different things we can do.”
Korner Gem has been in business since 1996 and offers custom stone cutting, designing, stone setting, metal fabrication, and bead designs among many other jewelry services at its two locations in Traverse City and Frankfort.
Stephen Nesbit, a jeweler at Korner Gem, said their natural stone jewelry encompassed with high end gem stones are some of their most popular options. Many younger generation couples have come in looking for more natural leaning jewelry elements and ring pieces rather than just diamonds and high-end gemstones, Nesbit added, due to changing preferences and affordability. The jewelers also work with precious metals, so couples looking to utilize gold, silver, or platinum for their wedding rings can definitely do so via the shop. Customized rings incorporating things like family heirloom jewelry pieces and personal stones can be achieved at the store, too, where jewelers can further reimagine the final look.
Nesbit said Korner Gem customers have found that moss agate and, of course, Leland blues, are among the most popular natural stone options for couples getting married and designing their own rings. If people are going to do a full custom engagement ring or wedding ring, then the wedding bands get customized to fit up to it, Nesbit noted.
“What’s really unique about Korner Gem in general is that we kind of push the boundaries of what you can do with jewelry typically by using a lot of natural Michigan stones, whereas a lot of other jewelers don’t really have access to the lapidary services or the lapidary knowledge in order to create these types of pieces,” Nesbit said. “We’re kind of seeing a trend away from diamonds lately and more into those natural elements… It is more accessible for a lot of people to do more of a natural look with rings, and a lot of times, they just like the look, too.”
For more information about the Korner Gem, go to https://kornergem.com. To learn more about the services offered at The Trading Post, go to https://northporttradingpost.com.
