Weddingbee Blog

Whew. It’s officially spring, you guys, and so far, spring is CRAZY for the Panthers.

We’re moving into our new place on Saturday, so we spent this past weekend painting a few rooms in the new house. I love color, so I’m excited about it, but man, was it a lot of work. All that work resulted in my hands looking like this the night before we went shopping for wedding bands:

YIKES! I don’t normally have totally dainty hands, but they do NOT usually look like five purple sausages sticking out of a smushed tomato.

Mr. Panther’s hands were all jacked up, too, but we had to get the ring shopping over with.

I was fairly sure that my band would need to be custom-ordered, and I really wanted to make sure it was done in time for the wedding. So, despite our hideous hands, we took on the ring shopping trip Monday morning.

Once again, we visited our friends at Eternal Jewels in AmericasMart, the wholesale fine jewelry market where we bought my engagement ring. I already knew what I wanted: a diamond band just like my engagement ring’s band, but in rose gold. What I didn’t know was how we’d make it fit next to my ring. See, my center stone setting is very low. The whole thing sits completely flat on my finger. See?

I wanted it that way so that I would be less likely to get it caught on things, but it made the wedding band selection process tricky. I assumed I had two options. The first would be a curved band, like this:

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Please note: That is NOT MY HAND. It’s a picture I found on the internet. As horrible as my hands looked after two days of painting, they did not miraculously age 40 years.

I don’t really like the look of those, though. Plus, I knew I’d need a custom one made for the exact shape of my ring—I don’t care for the way they look when they don’t sit completely flush.

So, I thought my other option would be to get a regular diamond band and cut a hole in it for my engagement ring to fit in, then solder the bands together. I expected this to be complicated, though. We’d have to do the soldering after our honeymoon, and a ring with a hole in it would look very strange when Mr. Panther put it on my finger during the ceremony.

When we got to the jewelers, I was thrilled to find out that they had another solution. They explained that they would make a cut out in my engagement ring so that the intact wedding band would just slide under it. I’ll lose some of the pretty detailing in the side, but I’ll be able to wear my wedding band by itself if I want to.

I was planning on just getting one band, but the jewelers encouraged me to try two. Surprise, surprise, right? I remembered how gorgeous Miss Hippo’s double bands looked around her cushion-shaped halo setting, so I gave it a go. And like Miss Hippo, I was reluctant at first to get two bands, but was very easily convinced.

The milgrain edging matches my engagement ring, but the bands will be rose gold. As I may have mentioned, rose gold makes me weak in the knees.

They only had white gold in the store, and they don’t fit right next to my ring yet because I don’t have the cut-outs, but you get the idea:

Closer up:

If you want to see what white gold and rose gold look like next to each other, you should check out Mrs. Trail Mix’s set. So frigging pretty!

I can also just wear one band if I ever want to be less blingy, though I don’t know why that would ever be the case. I mean, come on—this is me we’re talking about. I love the bling.

So, it was settled—I’d get two bands and adjustments made to my e-ring. Easy! Next up—Mr. Panther’s wedding band.

Mr. Panther hadn’t done much online shopping like I did. He was pretty sure that he just wanted a simple, flat, white gold band—maybe with brushed metal instead of shiny. He didn’t think he wanted any beveled edges, borders or two-tone elements, but he wasn’t really sure. At one point, I asked him if he had any interest in getting rose gold to match my bands. He thought that rose gold was too girly. I informed him that rose gold is actually an alloy of gold and copper, and copper is totally a manly metal, but he wasn’t convinced, so I left it alone.

At the jeweler, Mr. Panther tried on a few flat, plain bands. They were fine, but … so boring! I knew that Mr. Panther wanted something simple, so I tried to keep my opinion to myself, but I just couldn’t resist asking him if he wanted something a little more special. I was happy to spend extra for something that didn’t look like it could have been purchased at a gas station, ya know? So, Mr. Panther tried a couple fancier options. Finally, he put on a yellow gold brushed band with white gold milgrain edging. It was simple, but special. The jeweler mentioned that it might be nice if he got white gold with rose gold edging, and he actually liked that idea! Yes!

At this point, I asked Mr. Panther to hold his hand still so I could take a picture, and the woman helping us said that pictures weren’t allowed. Whoops. Good thing she didn’t notice when I was taking pictures of mine! What did we do before cell phone cameras?

So, since I don’t have photos, you ladies will have to use your imagination. It’s like this:

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… Except the white gold in the center is brushed, and the milgrain and inside of the band will be rose gold.

Two-tone bands with rose gold and white gold look like this:

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I can’t wait to see our bands when they come in! It should be around six to eight weeks, so we’ll get them in May some time.

How did you ladies pick your wedding bands? Did you go with one or two?