Three-ring circus

Choosing the rings that we would wear on our wedding day became a true three-ring circus.

From the second John slipped my engagement ring onto my finger (and watched it dangle upside down since it was way too big at first, ha ha), I wondered what sort of wedding band would look best with it. Since my engagement ring was a solitaire in a classic Tiffany setting, the options for complementary bands were seemingly endless.

I definitely wanted a diamond wedding band since there was already so much platinum showing on my engagement ring. Of course there's not really such a thing as "too much platinum," but I did feel that an all-metal wedding band would have come close; some princess-cut sparkle on my wedding band was definitely needed. I also liked the idea of an eternity band so that I would have LOTS of sparkle =)

So my options were pretty much a prong setting or a channel setting. However I worried about a prong setting, as I thought that the diamonds could be easily lost, or that the prongs themselves would scratch up my engagement ring.

A channel setting it is, then!

The search began in earnest. But the only problem was that I am extremely picky. The edges of my engagement ring's setting are rounded and I found it very difficult to find a channel-set wedding band with the same rounded finish. All of the channel-set bands I found had either straight, square edges, or sharply beveled edges, neither of which looked good paired with the smoother engagement band. I also had problems finding a ring with a good thickness to it; everything seemed either too thin or too thick to coordinate with my engagement ring.

Plus, I had the slow realization that my ultra-thin fingers may not be ultra-thin for the next 60 years. If I had a true eternity band with diamonds encircling the entire ring, there would be no way to resize the ring if my finger ever expanded. I considered adding a small sizing bar to the back of the ring but ultimately decided that it ruined the look of the ring. I then began to think about a half-circle of diamonds instead of a full circle. I had initially resisted this idea because my friends who had half-circle wedding bands often complained that the top-heaviness of the ring caused them to rotate off-center all the time.

But the more I thought about it, the more a half-circle made sense. And besides, what if I could find a wedding band with nine diamonds on it?? Nine is my lucky number, and after all we were getting married on the NINTH day of May in the year two thousand NINE, so it would be symbolic as well.

I went to Marlboro Diamond Castle with John and my mom for what must have been the eighth time (I swear I could hear the saleswomen groan whenever they saw indecisive me coming into the store), and Mom pointed out a band in the case that I hadn't noticed before. It had rounded edges, it was just a hair thicker than my engagement band, and it had ten princess-cut diamonds across the top. It was almost perfect. I asked if the ring could be made with nine diamonds instead, and made of platinum instead of white gold, and the saleswoman said absolutely. Finally! We ordered my ring that day and I am so happy with the way it complements my engagement ring.

Then it was time for John's ring. He was a lot less picky than me. He basically wanted an all-metal band in a white metal to complement my set, but he didn't necessarily want platinum because (1) he thought platinum was too heavy for him, since he wasn't used to wearing jewelry at all, and (2) he felt that he would get it all banged up and scratched at work, so he didn't want such an expensive metal.

That's when we discovered palladium, platinum's lighter, less-expensive sister. John loved the palladium rings by ArtCarved and he chose a band that mimicked the look of my channel-set band, with a "channel" of matte-finished palladium sandwiched between bands of shiny-finished palladium. That was easy!

The third ring of the "three-ring circus" was my right-hand ring. My birthstone is blue topaz so I thought it would be nice to wear a blue topaz ring on my right hand on the wedding day as my "something blue." One day John and I were in Macy's adding things to our registry, when we walked through the jewelry department and I found a lovely blue topaz ring that was on sale. It featured a large cushion-cut blue topaz surrounded by pave diamonds on a white gold band. I loved it because it looked very antique-y and classic. John said "If you really like this ring, I'll buy it for you as your wedding gift, and then you can wear it on the wedding day." Really!? Oh honey, that's so sweet! And that's just what we did.

So, we ended up with three more rings that we really loved, in addition to my engagement ring. Not too shabby for being a year away from the wedding day! My only regret is that I wish we had them engraved. Unfortunately my thin wedding band was too thin for a proper inscription, and it seemed silly to only customize John's, so we skipped it altogether. But if we could have engraved them, we had a few options:

• "Minn Besti Vinur" / "Hverju Sem Dynur" - Icelandic for "My Best Friend" / "Whatever May Happen," which is a lyric in a song by Sigur Ros that I printed on the first page of our wedding programs. I thought it was a nice sentiment for marriage. (We also referenced this in the last line of our wedding vows: "You are my best friend, whatever may happen. I am honored to call you my husband/wife.")
• (in his ring) "PUT IT BACK ON!" Ha ha ha.
  
• "FOR-EV-ER" - One of the best quotes from the classic movie "The Sandlot" ;-)
  
• Or we could have been completely boring and just put our wedding date in there. But it still would have been nice.

Oh well. Maybe we'll look into the engraving thing down the road for an anniversary or something. There's gotta be someone who can engrave on a thinner band, right?