JMG, could you elaborate a bit more on why this would be a bad idea. I am in a similar situation and was planning to ask a jeweller to melt the gold and make new rings out of them. I was thinking of this as alchemy, i.e. turning my memories of a bad wedding from my parent into a happy one.

Is it the memories associated with it? Or is it something intrinsic to the gold now? How would that be different if the gold were sold and someone else wore the rings?