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How to Choose a Wedding Band to Match Your Engagement Ring

May 10 2022 – Summer Yarbrough

Matching Wedding and Engagement Rings
Matching Wedding and Engagement Rings
Your engagement ring tells the story of finding the person you love most.
Your wedding band tells the tale of a commitment to write the rest of your life story with that person.
Many choose to layer these two chapters of their love story by wearing their engagement ring and wedding band together. When done correctly, you can showcase all the beauty of two cherished moments of your journey together. But if you fall short, it might look like these two chapters of your love story were written by separate authors, or even worse, like the rings do not even belong in the same book.

 

How to Wear Multiple Rings

Two stacks of white gold wedding bands with one diamond encrusted band
Let's start here. It’s your wedding, it’s your love story, and most of all it’s your hand that will be wearing the rings in question. Ultimately, go with what makes you happy. Follow a meaningful tradition, start a new trend, or wear your rings the way that feels the most comfortable to you.
The styles in which you can wear your wedding rings are pretty much endless (Well, you can wear them in about 45 different combinations if you have two bands and ten fingers available, but who's counting?). That can sound pretty overwhelming to a bride who already has to make so many decisions for her and her husband-to-be’s big day.
But let not your heart be troubled, Rustic & Main is here to help!
We have been in the ring crafting business for six years now, so we know a thing or two about ring-wearing. Here are a few ways that you can layer your rings so they tell your love story.

 

 

Traditions on How to Wear Your Wedding Rings

Groom holding lite candle standing with bride wearing ballgown while a priest in a white robe with blue trim places a golden ring on the bride's ring finger of her left hand
If you’re planning a wedding, you quickly learn that there is a tradition for just about every step of the process, from the groom waiting to see the bride in her wedding dress till the ceremony to the groomsmen “decorating” the getaway car. There's even a tradition about putting a sixpence in the bride's right shoe for good luck, so you can bet your bucktooth that there are traditions about how you wear your wedding rings. 

 

The Vein of Love Wise Tale

bride's right hand with two diamond encrusted rings on her middle finger places a white gold wedding band on the groom's ring finger of his left hand
You may find many engaged and married women wearing their rings on the fourth finger of their left hand. When you asked your Mimaw why this is so, she told you with a sparkle in her eye. 

 

“ You wear your wedding rings on the ring finger of your left hand because it has a vein that connects directly to your heart.”
Well, you and Mimaw might be surprised to find that this tradition and saying is built on an age-old myth!
Rooted back in Ancient Egyptian and Roman tradition, modern Americans wear their wedding rings on the left-hand ring finger to honor the belief in vena amoris or the vein of love. The Egyptians and Romans (like Mimaw) believed that the ring finger on the left hand held the only vein in either appendage that directly connected to your heart.
Unfortunately, the human circulatory system is not actually structured this way, but you and Mimaw can still enjoy the sentimental lore of this ancient tradition.  

 Closer to The Heart

You may also have noticed married American women wearing their engagement ring stacked atop their wedding band. This tradition states that you place the wedding band beneath the engagement ring so that the wedding band will be closer to your heart.

Other Ways to Wear Your Wedding Rings

Bride and groom's left hands doing thumbs ups, wearing their platinum wedding bands on the tips of their thumbs. Bride is wearing engagement ring shaped in a four leaf clover design on the ring finger of her left hand
While tradition builds a foundation for us to follow those before us, past practices do not always flow with the storyline we are writing today.  

Simply Practical

Bride and groom lay their left hands over the bride's bouquet of orange and red flowers. Bride is wearing a simple white gold wedding band on her left hand's ring finger. Bride is wearing another ring on her pointer finger that has two diamonds in a Toi Et Moi design. Groom is wearing a simple white gold band on the ring finger of his left hand.

There are many practical reasons for breaking from the traditional way your culture wears wedding rings. Wearing more than one ring on a finger can feel heavy to some hands. Distributing the weight onto a couple of fingers can relieve this discomfort. You can stack your snug wedding band on top of your loose engagement ring if you’ve not had a chance to resize it yet. For the left-handed people of the world, it may drive you up a wall to go through life wearing rings on your dominant hand. In that situation, choosing sanity over tradition is more than understandable. It's encouraged.

When Tradition Isn’t Your Style

Bride Holding Bouquet wearing her wedding rings on on the ring finger of her left hand. Her engagement ring has a large statement diamond, and her wedding ring is a nestle ring enhancer with a sunburst design using marquise cut diamonds.

You may also like the aesthetics of a new fashion of wearing wedding rings. You invest a lot of thought and money into your rings, so you want them to look amazing. A trend some brides like is to nestle their engagement ring between two wedding bands to give a cohesive look. 

Ultimately, you will not know what arrangement of bands works for you until you try a few out, so feel free to play around with it till you find what style fits you best.

How to Match Your Rings

Many couples have questions about matching the engagement rings and wedding bands. The ideal ring match is defined by you as a couple, depending on your story together and your personalities. But rest assured knowing that you have already found your perfect match in a life partner. So, you can definitely find the right match in rings too.

Here are a few options you can consider in picking out the perfect rings to wear together.

Buy a Bridal Set 

Bride wearing a bridal ring set on the ring finger of her left hand. The engagement ring has a large round cut diamond and the band is inset with smaller diamonds. Her wedding band is an eternity band design, a ring inset with diamond of a uniform size all the way around the band.

If you want to be absolutely sure that your wedding band and engagement ring match perfectly, you can find rings that an expert jewelry designer purposefully created to be a set. These bridal sets have pretty clear-cut pros and cons to them. When you choose to go with a bridal set, you can rest assured the rings look good together, and going this route usually shortens the ring shopping process. On the downside, since you give up creative control of the band, it can feel a little less personalized to you.

Matching Metals & Other Materials

A dark back down with three rings, one thick, steel grey men's wedding band, and a bridal set. The engagement ring is white gold, with a square cut pronged set diamond and the wedding band is white gold eternity band inset with small diamond encircling the exterior of the ring

We do not necessarily mean pairing two rings of the same alloy and color when we say matching metals. That said, you can unify the look of your bands by choosing bands made of the same metal. But, just like how your and your fiance’s differences highlight the beauty of each other, rings made of different metals can look even more striking than a set made entirely of the same materials.

six bands made of different metals, white gold, silver, rose gold, and yellow gold are posed with a piece of taupe tulle running through them. One band is diamond encrusted
Many brides choose to put together a yellow gold and a white gold ring for a modern look. A new trend for mixing and matching metals is to throw rose gold into the mix to give a warm, feminine glow to your set of rings. 
  Still, some brides throw the tradition of a metal ring to the wind and opt for a band made of wood, resin, or deer antler. Nontraditional wedding bands just happen to be our specialty! 

Ethically Sourced. Sustainably Made. 

Bride holds a bouquet of greenery and red flowers. On her left hand's ring finger, she is wearing a handmade Rustic & Main custom wooden wedding band.

This ties into an ever more common trend we are excited to see. Today, many engaged couples are seeking out conscientious crafted wedding bands. Here at Rustic & Main, we source our materials sustainably and ethically, from repurposing antique woods from barns, rifle stocks, and US battleships, to getting our elk antler off the forest floor, leaving the mighty elk to roam free. Also, our rings are handmade in the USA by our team of crafters working at our shop in Hunterville, NC which means less shipping and an awesome work environment.

Bold and Basic

A bride sits posed with her left hand on top of her right hand. On her left hand's ring finger she is wearing her wedding band atop her engagement ring. The engagement ring has a large round stone. Her wedding band is thick yellow gold with a small inset diamond.

 More is not always more when it comes to fashion, especially in the jewelry department. Viewing bold rings and simple bands as opposing styles is a massive misconception. In many cases, you want to pair that big, beautiful engagement ring that you could not help but say yes to with a tastefully understated wedding band. This pairing allows the bands to complement each other, whereas two ornate bands war for the eye's attention. A simple band of gold or platinum can be a classy match for engagement rings with large statement gems or with the trending, romantic design of a Toi Et Moi ring.

A bride and groom's left hands posed together by their sides. The bride's rings are an white gold engagement ring with a large pronged diamond in the center and her wedding band is a thick eternity band with uniform sized diamonds encircling the exterior of the band. The groom's band is yellow gold and encrusted with small diamonds.
Basic does not always mean bland though. A classy wedding band can still have a bit of sparkle without trying to steal the show. Ring designs like the eternity band give the best of both worlds, with the uncomplicated design of stones encircling the entire band while still adding a lot of glitter alongside that shiny engagement ring.

 

Complementary Shapes

Three rings posed together. The left is a white gold engagement ring with a large round cut diamond with a pronged setting. The middle ring is a eternity band with uniform diamonds inset along the exterior of the white gold band. The right ring is a second wedding band inset with small diamonds that has a notched feature.
We all have experienced skipping out on a fun fashion trend going around simply because it did not look good on us. You want to keep this in mind, especially when considering rings you will be wearing for the rest of your life. 
If a new trend of rings looks phenomenal on your hand and you fall in love with the design, by all means, go for it. Just because the trend fades does not mean that ring set stops looking great on you. But, if you have that moment where you are trying to convince yourself that something looks good that does not, it is time to consider some other bands.

We all have experienced skipping out on a fun fashion trend going around simply because it did not look good on us. You want to keep this in mind, especially when considering rings you will be wearing for the rest of your life. 
what shapes are comfortable for you to wear. Secondly, you want to make sure the two shapes of the rings complement each other. For comfort and aesthetics, you usually want to avoid large gapping between the bands. An engagement ring with a large setting usually requires a v-shaped, notched, or contoured wedding band for a puzzle-piece fit on your finger, while a simple straight wedding band stacks beautifully with an engagement ring with a three-stone linear setting. 

Design A Custom Ring 

Custom Rustic & Main Wedding band. Top inlay made of wooden from customer's heirloom smoking pipe, the second inlay is gold from a family wedding band, and the third inlay is lavender petals from the bride's bouquet
There are too many styles of wedding bands to count, let alone to choose from. After you have been to a dozen jewelry stores and browsed Etsy for what felt like hours, you might find yourself questioning if your perfect ring is even out there. The perfect option for you is to customize a ring that you feel tells your story to the T, which Rustic & Main just so happens to specialize in. Bring the rose petals that your fiancé sprinkled down the trail he proposed to you on, the wood from the dancehall where you first met, or the barrel wood from the brand of whiskey you both drank that first night you said I love you. Rustic & Main can take the little mementos from those treasured times and turn them into a ring that encapsulates the beginning of your love story. 
We can craft your custom ring from your materials or from an array of unique materials we keep in stock. Rustic & Main keeps antique and novelty woods like whiskey barrels on hand for the base of rings, and we also keep a selection of inlays in stock that include precious metals, stones, lavender, shed elk antler, and much more. We would love to craft a ring with you that tells your love story. Check out our ring customizer tool on our website to start designing your custom wedding band, and our live chat team will be happy to answer any questions you may have along the way.
The ring above is a custom design we did for Allen and Leanne. We took wood from Allen's maternal grandfather’s favorite pip, gold from his other grandfather's wedding ring, and lavender from the same field as the flowers in Leanne’s wedding bouquet, and we crafted a wedding band that commemorates the most important people in Allen’s life.