Ashley Taylor’s sister Katie never intended to be Cupid, but an unexpected meeting between Katie’s coworker at a jewelry store and Ashley upended all of their lives.
This one’s a doozy, so get ready: Ashley had been working in Slovenia as a missionary and returned to the United States. She had come home somewhat brokenhearted as the man she previously dated was now married. Meanwhile, her sister had gotten engaged while Ashley was overseas, and Ashley would be meeting the fiancé, Zack, for the first time.
“I had older-sister protective vibes to start, but when they came to pick me up at the airport, I could see it was going to be fine. He was a really sweet guy,” Ashley recalls. “Both of them kept talking in tandem about his brother: It was Zack and Jerry, Jerry and Zack.”
If you’ve watched any romantic comedies, you might guess what happened next. Jerry and Ashley had a meet-cute moment when he came to the sisters’ home to pick something up. They later ran into each other again at the jewelry store where Katie, Jerry, and Zack all worked—and, as Ashley admits, it soon became love. After a short dating period, they married in 2006.
“My sister and I are very close, and we jokingly had planned a double wedding when we were teens. A double wedding really isn’t a great idea, but marrying brothers was,” Ashley says.
Fast-forward through a move from Utah to California: Today, Ashley and Jerry own and operate Taylor Custom Rings, an online company they founded in 2015 that recently opened a showroom in Carlsbad, Calif. Jerry does most of the operations side, and Ashley has joined him in becoming a ring designer.
It’s a far different life from what they once anticipated. Jerry was planning to go to dental school when he started working at the jewelry store; Ashley had studied English literature and linguistics. But their combined talents, along with Jerry’s decision to become a GIA graduate gemologist, turned them into a powerful design team, Ashley says.
“We work together. We raise our four kids together. We just never get tired of each other. Not every partnership is this way, but we’re good with it,” Ashley says.
Ashley began designing rings as a surprise for Jerry. They had just gone out on their own with Taylor Custom Rings, and she was pregnant with their fourth child. Ashley was doing the marketing, but she knew he wanted more designs for their own line of engagement and wedding rings.
One night she sat down and started drawing, letting her imagination flow.
Ashley says she’d never thought of herself as an artist or a potential jewelry designer, but she showed Jerry her sketches—including one for a ring they now call the Darby, which became one of their best sellers.
“As a joke, I had dropped those designs on his lap. He ended up loving them, and talked me through the 3D design elements and how that would work,” Ashley says. “It was exciting to take this thing that was a whim of creativity and make it into something that worked—a real object in the real world.”
The couple works largely with lab-grown diamonds and stones in their regular and custom designs. It’s an exciting time in their lives as their children are growing up and the business is successful, Ashley says, speaking of the joy she and Jerry get from their work as life partners and business owners.
“It’s been a leap of faith, but it’s also been fun along the way,” she says.
Top: Ashley Taylor of Taylor Custom Rings in California met her now husband and business partner, Jerry, by chance through her sister. (Photos courtesy of Taylor Custom Rings)
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