With this ring, which I made, I thee wed.

This wording is quite likely to be added to the marriage vows of those who attend Elizabeth Anne Norris’s workshops.

The Hove jewellery maker has recently introduced classes for couples who want to make their own wedding rings. And the take-up has been surprisingly popular.

Although her participants start off a little nervous – after all, nothing symbolises a marriage as much as a wedding band – after three hours of shaping, hammering and soldering they generally end up with something that is both an object of beauty, and (with luck) built to last.

“I’ve had couples who’ve joked that this could be the end of their marriage before it’s even started,” says Elizabeth. “It’s such a personal thing. And a wedding ring might be the only piece of jewellery that they will wear so they would want it to be special. But most people are pretty delighted with what they have created.”

Elizabeth has been running jewellery making workshops from her studio off Waterloo Street for two years. But it was only after some of her clients asked if they could make their own wedding rings that she realised there was a need that she could fulfil.

“They said they hadn’t been able to find what they were looking for in the shops, and that they wanted to make something that was personal and unique to them,” she says.

“With a renaissance in handmade crafts, I think people are beginning to appreciate how special it is to have something handmade. One couple were not only making their own wedding rings, they had also made everything else, from the trestle tables for their guests to sit at, to the chairs and the décor.”

Others have regarded the workshop itself as a way of forging their relationship – especially if they have decided to make each other’s ring. “They’ve said they thought it would be romantic, and the perfect start to their marriage,” says Elizabeth. “It would give them a lovely memory to look back on.”

Wherever possible, Elizabeth tries to help her clients craft their chosen design. A couple who had an affection for a particular woodland wanted one ring to have a bark design and for other to have an oak leaf shape embellishment.

Another betrothed twosome wanted both Chinese and English inscriptions to reflect their different nationalities.

Before couples arrive at her workbenches in an art studio off Waterloo Street, Elizabeth has a chat with them about the sort of material they may want to use. They can select from sterling silver to white, yellow or rose gold, or use a combination of the metals.

She then guides them through the various stages, from measuring and cutting the metal to the right length, to softening it with a blowtorch in order to bend it into shape, to soldering on any embellishments, and then finishing it by burnishing, polishing or oxidising it.

Not everything is possible for a beginner, she points out. “Sometimes people want to set stones in their rings, which is quite tricky. It’s not something that can be done in the workshop.”

Elizabeth began jewellery making classes as a hobby seventeen years ago before turning to it professionally. She initially trained as an environmental scientist and worked at Kings College in London as an air quality analyst, a job that involved gathering data on pollution levels in London and putting out alerts if the air quality posed a health risk.

“I am passionate about environmental science,” she says. “But I always craved to do something creative. I suppose I went down the science route at school because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

For several years she combined her work as an analyst with her artistic passion – adding an HND in silversmithing in 2004 to her BSc in biology and her Msc in environmental biology.

Her final piece from her course at Sir John Cass School of Art and Design went onto win first prize for Innovation and Excellence in Design Development from the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths- and gave her the impetus to take her hobby seriously.

Having lived in Brighton for 20 years, the 43-year-old began to realise that it was possible to make a living from creative pursuits. “I knew about the artists’ open houses long before I started jewellery making. There’s so much creativity going on in Brighton and that was probably a great influence.”

She had gradually been reducing her hours at Kings College to devote more time to her jewellery making. So when her silversmith teacher retired and gave her equipment to run her own studio and workshops, Elizabeth took the plunge.

But she has not quite left her old world behind.

Her own jewellery designs, sold online and in shops in Brighton and Oxfordshire, are influenced by her love of nature and the environment, with floral textures and moon motifs appearing on her pendants, bangles, cufflinks and rings.

And, as a scientist, she also takes satisfaction in knowing the properties of metals and what’s happening to them in the jewellery making process. “There’s quite a lot of crossover because you’re working with metal and you have to know how it responds to heat and chemicals and hammering. I guess that intrinsically is something I know.”

She also enjoys working with the tools and equipment, which she recognises appeals to the geeky part of her brain. Her favourite part of the job as an air quality analyst was “going out and calibrating all the equipment”.

The difference now, she says, is that she still gets to use lots of different tools – and at the end she has created something beautiful, which makes her work all the more satisfying.

• For more information about Elizabeth’s jewellery making visit her website eanjewellery.com/about-elizabeth-anne-norris.