With all the wedding planning, you may leave the wedding ring to the last minute. Careful thought should be given to selecting the perfect wedding band that fits both your personalities and styles. You may discover that your perfect ring needs to be made to order or you may choose to purchase from pre-designed styles. Leave yourselves a few months to make sure you’ll have the ring in plenty of time.
The first question to ask is whether you prefer a traditional all-metal wedding band or a ring set with diamonds or gems. Do you and your spouse want to wear matching rings? If so, chances are you’ll choose metal bands. If not, there are more options available. Today, many women and men choose rings set with diamonds or other gems. These can be bands with gems added or rings with a more elaborate design.
Instead of a band that matches a man’s ring, many women today match their wedding bands to their engagement rings to make them easier to wear together. If you plan to wear your engagement ring and wedding band on the same finger, it’s important to consider how they fit together and feel on your finger. Many engagement ring designs have matching bands available. Even if your ring doesn’t, you may find a band that fits well, either straight or curved, depending on your design. If it doesn’t exist, you can have it custom designed. If you don’t have a matching band, you can also consider a wedding ring with a twist design, which has natural dips that often fit solitaires and other engagement rings perfectly. Try on a few to see what works best with your engagement ring.
Figuring out the correct ring size for an engagement ring is an important step in the buying process. While you can always resize if needed, this can take up valuable time (anywhere from a couple of hours to a month, depending on the ring’s design) and potentially damage your ring if done inexpertly. You can get her size right on the first try through a number of different ways: taking one of her current rings to be measured by a jeweler, asking one of her friends or family members if they know it, asking her directly, or going to a jeweler together and getting her measured there.
Most couples engrave the inside of their wedding rings. You can chose something as simple as your initials and the date or a private message. You have the choice of hand engraving, which is deeper and longer lasting or laser engraving, which offers more font and size choices but is shallower. If your engraved message is long or the space available is limited because of the ring design, you’ll probably need to choose laser engraving. Remember, never engrave until you know the ring fits as sizing will remove the engraving.
