Caulfield North, Australia 08 April 2014 : Before you exchange wedding bands in Melbourne, or perhaps even before you walk into a jewelry store to look at wedding bands in Melbourne for your future fiancée or spouse, you should think about the history of the ceremony that you are planning to take part in. Have you ever even considered just how old the ceremony of exchanging wedding bands is? That husbands and wives to be have been exchanging wedding bands for almost two and a half millennia - and that is only from recorded history? So before you put that wedding band on the ring finger of your future husband or wife, imagine how romantic and dramatic the whole process actually is - you are performing an almost sacred rite, the same right that a Roman or Indian man performed two thousand years before you! How fitting that you should continue a tradition as old as that, a tradition that binds so many cultures across time, countries and continents together.

The custom that you are about to perform, or are thinking of performing, goes back to the times of the Ancient Roman civilization, as far as we are aware. For all we know, it might even be older, but was never recorded. What we do know is that the ceremony finds written records for the first time one thousand years before the birth of Christ. That is right - it has survived three thousand years!

Unlike what happens today, future couples had a formal betrothal ceremony where both families - parents, siblings, grandparents, and other close relatives - of both the man and the woman were expected to be present. A diamond wedding bands - the first of many gifts that would be bestowed upon the woman by the man during the long process between betrothal and the wedding - would be given by the future groom to the future wife. In some cultures this was a symbol of love, but in most others, it was commonly a symbol of an alliance. Historically, marriages have been performed more as monetary and social alliances between families than to unite a man and a woman in love. So it is only fitting that these wedding bands were almost always made in gold or silver, because it represented a promise, made most often by the groom, to accept the wife into his family; and also by the bride's parents to pay the groom what was required to keep the family happy.

Of course, these customs have changed slightly. Nowadays, an engagement is a very private affair. The man or the woman proposes to his or her partner before informing the family, who often has nothing to do with the business of setting up an alliance. Unless the couple has signed up for an arranged marriage, the wedding bands Melbourne is a symbol of the love that has already been shared and will continue to be shared. However, if you are a history buff, it would be interesting to consider just how much the symbolism has changed, though the bands remain the same.

Engage Jewellery is a retail jewelry store specializes in diamond engagement rings and wedding bands in gold or platinum.Click here to contact the Engage Jewellery, or follow on: google+