Weddingbee Blog

I like to talk about rings.

You’ve probably already gathered that, especially if you can remember some of my first posts blogging on Weddingbee, where that was all I seemed to talk about. Remember the one where my engagement ring was too small for my man-hands? Or the one where I waited three months after our engagement to have it resized? Or the one where it finally came back to me all those months later?

Well, to this day I’ve always been worried about what would happen when it came to choosing wedding bands—because no matter what kind we purchased, it would need to be resized and I would have to wait. Again. Ugh. Patience is SO not one of my strong points.

So, here comes the hard part:

Choosing the type of band to match to my ring.

Mr. Jaguar has already decided that he wants the simplest of all white gold bands that he can find, and that’s that. He’ll be easy to buy for: we’ll probably wait and get his ring back in Australia a few months before the wedding. Other than a watch, he doesn’t wear any jewelry at all, so wearing a ring is a big deal for him! As for me, well, I’m still torn about what to do.

If you remember with my e-ring, the reason that the resizing took so long initially, was because of the channel-set stones set in the half band. Logically, the easiest way to remedy this for my future wedding ring, is to go for a simple platinum band that is around the same width as the e-ring: 3mm. The plus side to this is that going without stones is the cheaper option, too. But then, I really want to see how a sparkly band would pop against my ring, so we decided to go and try on a few for size. (No pun intended, really.)

First things first: we went to a handful of random jewellery stores nearby. The platinum band was nice, but it was just that: just nice. Not dramatic, not amazing, just simple and nice. I wanted to keep looking and to try the other option: another half channel-set band.

But alas! We couldn’t find a diamond band to match the width or the size of my e-ring band. I tried on loads of different rings from loads of different stores. They all looked wrong. I looked into getting one specially made by a jeweller to match our specifics, but was quoted quite steep prices, so we were once again at a loss as to what to do next.

One helpful friend told me that the only way to get a real match would be to head back to the store where the engagement ring was created…a fact that I was kind of reluctant to relay to Mr. Jaguar, who I knew would turn a nice shade of pale. I didn’t specifically want or need a matching wedding band from a certain store, but it was worth looking anyway, so off we went.

And wow. I forget just how beautiful everything is there until I go and look at the display cabinets. I know it’s super expensive and that you’re partially paying for the brand, but you know, the service at Tiffany & Co is great and they really, really know their jewels. I showed them my ring and they brought out a few options to try on, but there it was: the exact matching wedding band, right down to the size and sparkle of the diamonds. Of course, I had to examine it stuck on my knuckle with my e-ring loosely over the top, but you get the idea - it was beautiful.

What happens next? I have no idea. We haven’t made up our minds yet, and I’m still in two minds myself. One side of me is jumping for joy at the sight of those matching bands but the other side is feeling overwhelmingly guilty, because we could use that money to go towards other things that are happening next year, like wedding costs or our home building costs. The store has ordered the wedding band in a bigger size for me to try on properly, so maybe we’ll go look again and see what happens, or maybe we’ll stick to the traditional simple band.

What do you prefer: the idea of plain matching bands, or mis-matched wedding bands?