Meet Jeff
The hands behind every ring
Ring + Grove co was founded by Jeff Ballantyne in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. What started as a one-person passion project has grown into a workshop producing 15,000+ handcrafted wooden wedding bands over 10+ years.
We don't have factory assembly lines or CNC — but we do use lathes for shaping and finishing, and every ring is still built with our bentwood method: steaming thin wood veneers, forming them around a core, and finishing by hand. No two rings are exactly alike.
Our materials come with provenance: whisky barrel oak from bourbon barrels, Grey Maple from Canadian forests, Santos Rosewood from South America. Every metal inlay — copper, silver — is purely decorative. It adds contrast and beauty, but no ring is structurally stronger because it has (or doesn't have) a metal inlay.
Every ring is waterproof, re-finishable, and re-sizeable, sealed with a durable clearcoat. We stand behind our work with a limited lifetime warranty on the finish (free touch-ups for everyday wear; $100 when the clearcoat needs a full repair). Free resize up or down half a size.
Available worldwide through our online shop and wholesale to independent jewelers across North America. We've also wholesaled rings that appeared in Forbes and on the Rolling Stone website (under a partner's branding), and the CEO of Fender Guitars wears one of our rings.
Meet Bethany
The voice behind every five-star review
Bethany is the real CEO of Ring + Grove — the voice behind every five-star review, and unmistakably the nice one. If you've ever emailed us and walked away feeling like someone actually cared, that was probably Bethany.
She has her hand in every ring, from the starting process through to carefully placing the postage label on every outgoing package. Her sharp eye and attention to detail catch what others miss — a slightly off inlay, a finish that isn't quite right, a shipping label that needs one more look before it goes out the door.
She's also a mom — an atypical millennial mom and wife who somehow keeps a full workshop running while raising kids who get a front-row seat to what hard work actually looks like. We love that our kids can watch us work, learn about good work ethic, and see that you can still build something high-quality and deeply personal without a factory behind it.
A Decade of Craft
First Ring, First Mistake
Started in a small workshop with hand tools and early experiments on solid wood. The first rings broke — leading to an obsessed deep-dive into cross-grain bentwood engineering (and lathes for shaping, never CNC).
The Metal Inlay
Introduced hand-cut copper and silver inlays as decorative accents — purely for contrast and beauty, never for structural strength. The bentwood core does all the heavy lifting; metal is just the finishing touch.
Bought Our First Building, 5 Employees
Crossed the 15,000-ring milestone. From backyard builds to a permanent shop in Bobcaygeon, Ontario — still one ring at a time, still never mass produced.
Looking Ahead
Jeff and Bethany are working on expanding to Mexico and Italy. It is no easy task — but sooner or later, it is going to happen.