Weddingbee Blog

When Mr. Guinea Pig first gave me my engagement ring, it fit just the way I like it: slightly loose. Big enough to slide over my giant knuckles (I’m a notorious knuckle cracker), and just small enough to stay on without feeling tight or rubbing.

Then I lost some weight, and the ring was no longer just comfortably loose, but actually too big. When we went to a hockey game last month, my hands were freezing - as I was cheering and clapping, I realized that with cold hands I was in danger of flinging my ring off! So, added to my to-do list was to get my ring resized.

(a leetle too big - although I was pushing it up to show the gap)

I took a closer look at my ring and realized that I’d been kind of rough with it over the last year and a half, because check out the scratches on the band!

(a year and a half of being rough to white gold)

So I figured while resizing my ring, I’d get it Rhodium plated to spiff it up!

Rhodium is a precious metal in the platinum family, and it’s a bright silvery white color. It has a high reflectance (meaning it’s very reflective, like a mirrored surface) so it makes the jewelry quite shiny. On its own, rhodium is not malleable enough to make solid jewelry (and has a really high melting point so it’s hard to heat up to the point of bend-ability) plus it’s pretty expensive, so the solution is to simply electroplate white gold or platinum jewelry with it to give a thin coating with extra shine and protection/durability.

In addition to just the pretty aspect, rhodium is an inert metal and hypoallergenic, so if you’re allergic to the components of white gold (i.e. nickel), you can rhodium plate your ring to protect your fingers from an allergic reaction! Rhodium also will not tarnish or discolor, so you won’t have the yellowing that white gold has over time (although it will eventually wear off so you’ll have to re-plate your ring).

When I got my ring back last week, it was an e-ring worthy of a wedding day! It fit:

(this baby’s not going anywhere)

Aaand it’s nice and shiny!

(Hello reflection!)

Now my engagement ring is all ready for its close-up photos, even though a new ring will be sharing the spotlight!

Did you have any last minute work done to your engagement ring? Are you spiffing it up before the wedding?