If I asked you to picture a wedding ring in your head, your mind would most likely go to a plain gold ring, or potentially a pave diamond band. It’s rare that your mind would wander much further than the traditional options. While it’s easy to think outside of the box for an engagement ring, your wedding band can often be an afterthought. But what if it didn’t have to be?
I want to feature this wedding ring that I made recently because I think it’s a really good example of what can be done when a customer is looking for something slightly different than the norm.
I had made this particular customer’s custom engagement ring earlier in the year: a really lovely brilliant cut, knife edge solitaire. She had now returned for a wedding ring to complete the set. Her engagement ring featured a solitaire, a classic design which gave us an abundance of options when it came to the wedding band.
Often, you’ll find that your engagement ring will very much dictate the style of wedding band you can have. Some engagement rings —- while lovely on their own — are really restrictive in terms of what type of wedding band they can be paired with. You may only be left with a handful of options, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually like any of them.
When you’re looking at engagement rings, it’s always a good idea to ask to also see the wedding bands. While the latter might not be front of mind when shopping for engagement rings, the two will be worn together eventually, and you don’t want to limit your options from the outset.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of people end up wearing their wedding band every day and saving their engagement ring for special occasions, so it’s worth affording some extra time and consideration into choosing the perfect design.
With this band, as I said, we had lots of options.
We looked at both plain bands and diamond set bands, but neither were hitting the right notes for my customer. Her request? Something completely different. And my answer? Yes, I love a challenge. So we started looking at different designs and seeing just how much design we could incorporate into the ring as possible.
My initial inspiration came from images of stacking rings. Specifically, stacked rings incorporating the marquise shape. Marquise diamonds have an elongated elliptical shape with pointed ends, and look really distinctive on the finger. While we knew we wanted to incorporate the marquise shape into the band, it was important to keep the diamond shape consistent with her engagement ring.
Now, engagement rings and wedding bands don’t have to match exactly.
By incorporating certain elements of the engagement ring, you can create a complimentary piece that looks really intentional, but that can also stand alone. In this case, as there’s a brilliant cut diamond in her engagement ring, we used brilliant cut diamonds in the wedding band. That’s a really good link that ties the two rings nightly together.
The marquise shapes create a beautiful wave, the most (and potentially only) ornate thing about the ring. We can get away with this as we paired back every other element in the design, creating a ring that is consistent with the understated design of her engagement ring.
We also paid really special attention to all of the proportions of the ring: the height is the exact same as the engagement ring, and the width matches at the back. Even at first glance, it’s clear to see these pieces are a pair.
We used just seven diamonds across the top, and this was an intentional choice.
When you’re looking at wedding rings, a lot of bands have diamonds all the way around the band. While it looks nice, they’re not a great idea. You will end up losing a stone (or two) because the palm of your hand will go through the most wear and tear. If you ever need your ring sized, it’s also going to cost extra and will never be perfect due to the diamonds — you would have to remove a diamond and that could be too much or too little in terms of a finger size.
If you really want to have a fully diamond set band just consider allowing a small gap which can be used for sizing in the future.
The finished result of this was a gorgeous 18 carat yellow gold marquise shaped band, with brilliant cut diamonds in the band. Personally, I love this piece and I think it’s the perfect example of what you can create if you can think outside of the box. If you’re looking for a wedding ring that does exactly that, please get in touch with me at eileen@eileenmoylan.com.