A Straight Flush
January 31st, 2008 @ 5:14 pm by Mrs. Daffodil
It’s funny how my eyes naturally began drifting towards every woman’s left hand after I got engaged! I had never ever paid attention prior to that, but now I find myself unconsciously checking out every woman’s “bling” (as they say) on the bus, on the train, and - yes, I admit - during meetings at work 
.
One of the first things I noticed was that the large majority of women wear their engagement ring on top of their wedding band. Growing up, I had always thought that after marriage, the e-ring goes on the right hand with only the wedding band on the left. While many people still do this, the large majority seem to wear both on their left. And I must say that I love that look!
So here’s the rub. My e-ring is a three-stone ring, one which I absolutely love. Mr. D has great taste! One of his childhood classmates happened to be in the jewelry business, so Mr. D got the ring custom designed! The set, however, doesn’t have a smooth edge, so it wouldn’t sit flushed next to a traditional wedding band. While the easy solution is to just wear my e-ring on the right after I get married, I’ve come to really like the left-hand look. It looks like I’m going to need to get a custom-made wedding band as well…if only I could come up with a design that I liked!
My e-ring…which Mr. D had custom made through BluFusion Diamonds. You can see how the beautiful design on the set doesn’t make for a smooth edge
A close-up of my e-ring (excuse my big hand)…Mr. D has great taste, doesn’t he!
Anyway, Mr. D and I are headed back to his jeweler friend this weekend, and I have yet to find a design I really like. I am currently contemplating curved wedding bands, like the ones below…
Zales 1/4 ct. round and baguette enhancer
Kay Jewelers 1.2 ct. three-stone enhancer
Kay Jewelers 3/8 ct. enhancer…I think this is so pretty, but not sure if it would work with a three-stone!
I’m not quite sure how much I like the way these look. Most jewelers don’t carry these on hand, so I haven’t actually had a chance to try on anything like this next to my e-ring. I’ve also seen a custom-made band that had a v-shape both above and below the e-ring, bordering it on both sides. While it was very pretty, I know that women had a lot of trouble with the rings sliding around.
I’ll be sure to share with you what we end up deciding, but for all of you three-stone e-ring brides out there, I’m curious… Have you had any success in customizing a band that you liked? What style and look did you end up going with? Or did you end up going with a traditional band?
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29 Responses to “A Straight Flush”
I have a 3 stone e-ring and got an enhancer from Jared similar to the last picture you posted. It isn’t an exact fit, but it is pretty close and looks great.
I also thought that you moved the e-ring to the right hand, and wore the wedding ring on the left hand. Although my mom’s rings are welded together, so I’m not sure why I thought that. It turns out (apparently, thanks Google) to be the custom in part of Europe.
Same as Mrs. Spider. I have a slight gap. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I wanted to be able to wear my wedding band on its own at times when it didn’t make sense to wear my engagement ring so a curved band wouldn’t have worked for me.
I have a solitaire e-ring and curved band and love it. I will say that the curved band looks weird to me on its own (not sure if that’s b/c it IS weird, or b/c I’m just so used to seeing it with its friend my e-ring). I like the no-gap combo so it works. I realize this doesn’t help your question of “how does it look with a 3-stone e-ring?” but you can get u-bands at specialty jewelers and I vote for no gap!
I have a wedding set from my guy’s grandma, and the center stone on her e-ring doesn’t allow the wedding band to snug up next to it. So what they did is solder the bottom of the two rings together. It looks great (well, she has great taste anyway), but it also prevents the e-ring wearing down the band.
After I had it restored, the jeweler said that she did a great thing by having them joined soon after the wedding because he sees a lot of sets that have rubbed against each other. Apparantly it rubs the metal down and can be a problem for stones.
My bands don’t fit flush either which at first I thought was…odd. I just thought they “should” without really thinking about whether I liked the look better or not. But now I’m GLAD for it! Not a three stone though so not sure if it would work for you, but I still recommend you try on some straight bands first to see if it bugs you to have a teeny gap or not!
pic here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/03/15/mind-the-gap/
I love the look of both rings on the left ring finger. The more bling the better! If I can suggest anything about your wedding band I highly suggest that you get an eternity band vs one where the diamonds only go half way around. I don’t know about you but in the winter when my hands aren’t swollen my e-ring spins so at least if my wedding band spinsI can always see the diamonds!
But down to the real point if you know what the width of your e-ring is in millimeters it’s easier to find a wedding band. I thought I would have the same problem buying a wedding band because of the design of my E-setting but when I went looking I tried a ton of bands and wound up picking a band that was a little thicker from Ratani. I love it! It doesn’t match my ring exactly which is what I like about it and because I bought it a little thicker it buts up against my e-ring.
Is it possible to change the setting a bit on your e-ring so that one side is flat? I have a three stone with a round center stone with two pears and it is flat on both sides and I’ve tried on my flat band and there is no gap- i think because the center stone is raised and the long arms of the prongs are flattened. know what I mean?
i had a similiar problem as my engagement ring is an antique and the setting quite low and square. we decided to have a ring custom made because the gap drove me nuts. i didn’t like the way it looked on my hand, but more importantly i didn’t like the way it felt and couldn’t stand a band spinning around. i wanted to have my cake and eat it too - have it look/feel great with or without my e-ring. i think we came up with a great solution. see it here: http://tinyurl.com/2l9t7z
Mr. Daffodil does have great taste- I love your e-ring! I was going to quote Mrs. Spider’s old post on her wedding band dilemma, so that’s my input. I think your ring would look really nice with a straight band, but you should probably try them together to see how they look and feel to you. To each his own!
Hmm, that’s strange, I always thought that the engagement ring went below the wedding band to “protect” it or something like that? I’m used to my mom and grandmother wearing it as such, and wearing other jewelry on their right hand (I wear my college ring on the right).
I totally get you on the “weird shaped ring” thing. My FH chose a beautiful setting with a twist in it, so it has a matching wedding band to go with it. The matching one has channel set diamonds like the e-ring, and to me, that’s a bit much…maybe it’s just regional/ethnic tradition, but I was always under the impression that a woman’s wedding band was to be a “simple, austere reflection of the sanctity of her commitment”…and I think that’s why I shy away from more diamonds. So I think the ultimate solution will be to have the jeweler McGiver the same wedding band, sans diamonds, to fit the e-ring.
Fascinating that there’s so many different takes on the wearing of rings!
Tracey, my understanding is the wedding band goes “closest to the heart” which is why the e-ring goes on top.
I can’t think of any way to put a wedding band with my particular e-ring. So I’m either just doing the e-ring and not bothering with a wedding ring or e-ring on the right hand. We’ll see.
I also have a 3-stone ring — round with a tapered baguette diamond on each side — and am totally undecided about a wedding ring. What I have found re: a gap is that you can find a non-curved ring that fits very close to the e-ring if it’s set lower than your e-ring. Tiffany.com has a great interactive feature where you can add various wedding bands to their e-rings. I’ve found it helpful for narrowing down.
My engagement ring looks very similar to yours, though mine are asscher cut and yours look like princess from the picture. The setting looks basically identical, however.
At first, I was annoyed with the thought of having a gap, but I realized I would hate the look of a curved band by itself. While I don’t intend on often being in situations where I don’t wear my engagement ring, I know that sometimes when I travel, it will be best left at home, or if we are at the beach, and I wanted a wedding band I would be happy to wear by itself, sans the engagement ring. I’m getting an asscher cut eternity band, and while there is a bit of a gap there, I don’t think it will bother me nearly as much as having a funny-shaped band I wouldn’t want to wear on my own. The gap is really minimal since it’s set below the bulk of the main diamond.
My ring has an awkward setting too (http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/yourstareiscold/Ring/IMG_3125.jpg) and while I was planning on getting a custom band made, I decided against that for two reasons: 1) they would have had to take my e-ring to make a cast & 2) It would have looked awkward for the times I would need/want to only wear my wedding band (I travel a lot for work)… we actually went today to purchase our bands and I ended up with a band that our jeweler had in store that is a “straight” band with 5 diamonds in it… it does leave a bit of a gap, but nothing that’s horribly visible/annoying… I HIGHLY recommend going to your jewelers and just trying things on… as awkward as your setting might be, it may look fine with something readily available…
I had a three stone ring custom designed, but I didn’t think about the wedding band when I did. Just this past month I discussed my options with the jeweler and we ended up shaving the sides of my e-ring down so the band would sit flush against it. That way if I chose to wear the wedding by itself at any time, it won’t be curved. But it will still fit flush against the ring. There still is a slight curve that comes out of the ering still, but they left that there so they could mold the band to “lock” into place.
I’m with julieulie. When the FI announced that this would be a potential problem, I decided I would be fine wearing it on the right hand or having a slight gap. Since I think potentially there would be quite a few times I would only wear the wedding band, the “curved” band just wasn’t sitting right with me. The idea of shaving down the e-ring band a bit so it sits flush is a good idea if there is nothing special on the sides.
Miss Daffodil
My e-ring is a split shank so there are so bands holding the stone in between (I hate t make this association but it’s kinda like Britney’s engagement ring)
Anyway, I too love the look of the e-ring on the left hand so I got a simple and pretty diamond band that I wear separate from my e-ring. I decided to buck tradition and I wear it on my right hand.
And sometimes, like when I travel and it doesn’t feel comfortable to be totally blinged out I’ll wear just the wedding band on my left and no e-ring.
It’s weird how people mention to me sometimes that ‘I’m doing it wrong’–what do they care! I’m happy as can be and as long as you (and Mr D) are too then don’t sweat it!
My FH bought me a three stone engagement ring similar to yours. When we went in to get the bands, I found out that my particular ring had a matching band that had grooves on one side that matched up to the sides of my e-ring. When they are placed together, they “lock” together so to speak.
Yep, I have this issue as well. I have a three stone ring with a trellis setting and didn’t want to part with that detail just to have the wedding ring issue resolved.
I haven’t totally decided what I’m going to do but most likely I’ll get a separate band and wear the e-ring on my right hand. I like the idea of being able to wear just my wedding band if I want to.
Stones in the band isn’t an option for us–for Jewish marriages a plain band is required. So, adding to the bling isn’t going to happen. I think it’s possible to add a plain band to this that would look good, but the desire to have a ring that I can wear alone overrides that I think.
I have a 3 stone ring and I’m going to get a curved band. I’ve been to 2 places to look at them and they both had them in stock. If you go that way - you have to try them on. I realized there is no way to do this online. The curves are all a little different and it will depend on your ring which will fit it best.
I really liked the non-gap and they said they could customize it some (I’m having half diamonds and half sapphires). I’ve also heard the opposite of the eternity ring advice - don’t do it cuz the bottom of your hand continually snags of stuff. Considering the amount of lint I manage to snag with me engagement ring alone I believe it.
I have a three-stone e-ring and purchased a band from Kay (and they had it in store to try on) much like the picture you posted above from Kay. It fits almost perfectly around my e-ring, but also looks great by itself - so I can go either way stack ‘em or right/left it.
I have a beautiful big engagement ring that is great all by itself, and I’ve never had anything else (for 22 years). Why screw up a good thing?
I love the first pic you posted, the baguettes really go with the square design of your engagement ring. That being said, I think that a straight band would also look fine– go try stuff on!
I had my engagement ring and wedding band custom-made together. The engagement ring was specially designed so it would overlap the wedding band, otherwise we’d never get them to sit flush together!
I have a three-stone e-ring, and I had the hardest time finding a wedding band that I liked to wear with it. I had many jewelers tell me that if something bugs me now, it’ll always bug me. I did not like the gap that every band produced sitting next to my e-ring.
I finally decided to look at sets, and I found a set that I *love*. FI approved, and so I’m trading in my original e-ring, and getting a bridal set.
I would recommend anyone looking at e-rings look into the sets, too. Sometimes it is just too hard to find a matching band.
I don’t have a three stone ring, but due to the setting of my ring (custom designed as well) I decided to go with a “bump out” wedding band. At first I was really hesitant because then you can never really wear the wedding band by itself. So our jeweler came up with a great solution…put diamonds the whole way around, so you can just sping the band around when it’s by itself and you’ll never see the bump out. Such a great idea!!! Unfortunately, the diamonds the whole way around isn’t in the budget right now, but in a year or two, I hope to have them added so I can wear the band by itself some days (I can’t wear my e-ring at work sometimes).
Shoot me an email if you’d like a picture of my band.
I have a three stone and spent a couple of hours in different stores and different jewelers to find something that worked. Ultimately I went with a “bump out” design…so the rings don’t sit flush with each other all the way around, but not enough to really notice. Contact me if you’d like to see it.
Your jeweler friend should be able to come up with something. At all, it’s what he does. 
isn’t it true that if you don’t get the rings soldered they will rub each other and wear off, no matter what shape you get (bump out, straight, jacket, etc.)? because of this, i decided to finally get mine soldered. for the times when i want to wear a wedding band alone, i got a separate plain old gold band with no diamonds.
Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician
Engagement Date: December 29, 2006
Wedding Date: May, 2008
Blogging Since: August, 2007
Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA
About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
I had the same dilemma. I opted not the get a u-curve band so I have a slight gap between the two rings. You can see a picture on this old post: http://www.weddingbee.com/2006/11/16/wedding-band-not-the-musical-kind/