JOANA MIRANDA STUDIO

I was contacted recently by a custom jeweler/designer colleague who wondered if I had any design ideas for ways to deal with creating a wedding band to pair with a previously purchased engagement ring that has an unusual side profile.  As this jeweler pointed out, it is tiresome to have to make weird-shaped wedding bands to fit around an engagement ring.  As Design Associate for David Liska Custom Jeweler, I saw the creation of quite a few extraordinary engagement rings.  Because of the elaborate nature of these rings and their cost, the bride-to-be sometimes chose not to have a matching band created.   This is certainly one option to consider.  Sometimes the engagement ring is so spectacular that anything next to it would be “gilding the lily”.   A good example is this ring design I posted recently in my A Design A Day – Day 28 blog post:

Because of the bypass ring design, fitting a wedding band to this ring would be problematic.  Also, I think that adding more metal to the bottom or top of this design in the form of another ring would make the overall effect look unbalanced.  If a client wanted this ring and a wedding band, I would suggest that they wear the wedding band on the opposite ring finger.  The great thing about that, is that a plain gold or platinum wedding band looks simple and elegant, and can be dressed up later with gemstone or diamond eternity bands…a woman can never have too many rings!

If you love the idea of wearing your wedding band with your engagement ring, then often the best option is to choose a ring side profile shape that is straight, or one that has the stone sitting high enough up from the band so that the profile of the gallery doesn’t prevent another ring from sitting flush with it.  Good examples of this are these two ring sets by Martin Flyer:

When I designed my engagement ring, I knew that I wanted to have a very simple band to wear with the engagement ring.  I designed an intricate, lacy, floral platinum and diamond vine as the primary visual element in my engagement ring, and framed this vine between gold and millgrained platinum bands.  Designing a matching millgrain/gold band to compliment the engagement ring was a breeze.   A short time later I purchased two white gold, diamond and citrine eternity bands.   The thinness of these bands allows me not only to wear them stacked on my other ring finger (and still be able to play the viola comfortably!), but, depending on my mood, I mix up the ring combinations of all four rings:

My feeling is that an engagement ring should be beautiful enough to stand on its own, as should the wedding band.  There are no hard and fast rules for having to wear the two together.  Most important is that these rings remind you daily of your commitment to another human being and to your life with that person.

For more great online resources of jewelry designers doing bridal jewelry, please take a look at my previous blog post entitled Love is In the Air- Tips for Engagement Ring Shopping and Proposing.