Thursday, May 31, 2012

RINGS! Part 2

And the ring drama continues! Wes’s was actually a bit harder to find!  
Wes felt very weird about spending gobs of money on a ring. Also, he is a very active person. He is always doing something that would probably scratch up a soft metal ring. This got me thinking that maybe a harder type of metal might be better than gold. There’s a few options for people in the market for a nontraditional metal ring.

There’s tungsten, titanium, cobalt and palladium just to name a few. In particular, tungsten and titanium are significantly cheaper than white gold. If you are interested in knowing how all these metals compare I suggest these site:



Tungsten is much harder than gold and it is getting easier to find tungsten rings, so we gravitated towards this metal. Tungsten is hypoallergenic, doesn’t scratch, and stays polished forever. Too good to be true right? Well, yes in my opinion. Tungsten is a dark metal so it doesn’t look like white gold at all. Trust me we ordered some and they were very dark. However, they can be made lighter by plating it with some other metal and is thus called white tungsten but it is harder to find than regular tungsten. But here's the worse part… tungsten is difficult to get off in case of an emergency, as well. It is not impossible to get it off, but it takes longer. (I can hear Wes’s mom in my head right now saying “Wes you better get white gold instead of tungsten!”). Also, I felt that if we were going to consider white tungsten that we should go through a reputable company to make sure it was made out of tungsten carbide instead of lead! I was not very confident that some strange internet website selling rings for $20 would be able to confirm for me exactly what the ring was made out of.

For the record, I am team white gold! However, white gold isn’t all it is cracked up to be either. White gold is made by mixing gold with white metals like nickel or palladium and then is plated with rhodium. The rhodium wears off quickly. I have only had my engagement ring for two years and it is already yellowing. So, I have to take it in to get it replated which will cost $45. If it is plated with something else to make it white then what is the point of getting white gold anyway!?!

 I guess the only thing I recommend to people is that you do your homework and know exactly what you are buying.  

Wes tried on white tungsten carbide and white gold at the jewelers. He knew before going that he wanted a very plain band. No designs. No inlays. No fancy finishing. He decided he liked exactly 5mm, not 4mm or 6mm. He liked the ringed domed, not flat. He instantly liked this 5mm white tungsten ring the jeweler had. I was hoping we could it in white gold so in case of an emergency paramedics would be able to cut it off. However, the domed rings are more expensive because there’s more metal compared to the flat rings, so the jeweler gave us another crazy price for white gold. They didn’t have any older rings in the back like mine, so we left without a ring for him. We did some searching online and found white gold and white tungsten carbide rings on sale at Macy’s. I also had a 15% coupon so we order both of them to look at.

 Here they are:


Tungsten on right.

Tunsten on right. This is my hand - Wes's hand isn't that girlie!

They look the same in color. The only difference is that the white gold ring is a little flatter than the white tungsten. Both are comfort fit. The white tungsten was much cheaper. Again, I am team white gold.

AND he picked (drumroll)…


Tungsten. Oh well. Little does he know that his wedding present from me is going to be a vice grip for him to carry at all times in case we have to crack his ring off.

RINGS! Part 1

We have our rings! Hooray!

I spent a little bit of time thinking about what I wanted. My engagement ring is fairly simple ring with a round stone set in a very thin pave band made up of little round diamonds. Non-matching wedding rings are becoming very popular. I think it looks great and there’s something so brave about going with something nontraditional and having the confidence to carry it off. Check this one out:


I definitely can’t afford to get more diamonds or bigger diamonds so I thought maybe I can get a metal other than white gold. Such as rose gold! I looooooove rose gold right now. I have this beautiful rose gold watch that I got for my birthday. I wanted to try out the look before committing to it, so I ordered a fake rose gold thin pave ring from a costume jewelry store.

I like it! But, let’s be honest… my love for rose gold might not last forever and I am not a brave person. Thus, I decided to stick with a matching band. I tried a few others things at the jewelry store just to check, but it only confirmed that I should go with a matching band.

Until they told me the price… It was double the price of my engagement ring setting. WOAH! Why you ask? More diamonds? Nope. Better diamonds? Nope. Better metal? Nope. It was more expensive than my setting because the price of gold has been sky rocketing. Sad face.

I literally almost burst into tears because I had no idea what we were going to do. Wes was so wonderful. He told me that we could get it and that we would just figure it out. While I am sure this what any girl wants to hear, I just couldn’t spend the money. The lady could see that she wasn’t going to get a sale out of me and that I was really upset. That’s when she said that they had older rings sitting around that were ordered back when the price of gold was less and that they would be cheaper. We went through them and found one that is almost exactly the same as my engagement setting. Bingo. It was half the cost of the “matching” wedding ring.

Here it is!

This ring doesn’t fit perfectly up against my engagement ring, but I can live with that.

Maybe from time to time I'll slip the rose gold ring between the two to change it up. J