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Designing and Making Custom Wedding Bands? 121

Posted by Cliff from the more-on-wedding-rings dept.
dystrophy asks: "I'm planning on getting married shortly after I graduate in December. Because I'm a student who doesn't work much, I don't have tons of money to spend on an engagement ring/wedding band. After discussing this situation with friends and family, I discovered that poverty is the great equalizer. My parents designed their own wedding bands and had them cast for relatively little money because they inherited diamonds and gold from their family. Because of finances, they decided to forgo the engagement ring and spend what they had on wedding bands. I have some decent quality diamonds and gold from my family. I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic), but she might be willing to go with a simple engagement ring, or just put the money toward a wedding band. I have just started doing research on the topic of designing rings. I have talked to several jewelry designers in the Bay Area, but they don't want to deal with me. They want to sell me their diamonds and gold (I've heard various and interesting excuses from each). How should I go about this? Where should I go? When it comes down to the design, should I just work with my wife-to-be to create sketches to give a designer, or is something more needed? Any really cool ideas and designs for wedding bands?"
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Designing and Making Custom Wedding Bands? More

Designing and Making Custom Wedding Bands?

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  • go for something that embodies you two as a unity, don't worry about tradition (gold and diamonds). Symbolize it with words and/or design or some metal that can also function as a sundial, or a compass, or something functional. Be different.

  • And you're asking Slashdot... why?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bscott ( 460706 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @06:38PM (#5755249)
    I mean, if you wanted a GPRS/Bluetooth ring, I'd understand...

    Anyhow, one idea I can offer for "cool" rings, if you like black (clothes and etc), is Zirconium. It's not just for fake jewels; unlike its crystalline form, its metal state is non-tarnishing and a very cool greyish-black. My wedding ring is half zirconium, half yellow gold (like the top and bottom halves of a sandwich).

    My wife has a big 'ol honkin' rock - it's a 4 carat clear Opal. It draws a lot of comment and was within our budget, but as it's a soft mineral it requires some extra care.

    • Only on slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

      by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <`andrewvc' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:07PM (#5755392) Homepage
      My wedding ring is half zirconium, half yellow gold (like the top and bottom halves of a sandwich).

      Only on slashdot would you see someone describe the ultimate material symbol of his lifelong unending love, as a sandwich.

      What a website!
      • > Only on slashdot would you see someone describe the
        > ultimate material symbol of his lifelong unending love, as a sandwich.

        Was it:
        - Because I was typing in kind of a hurry and couldn't think of a clear, 1-word way to describe how the basically-toroidal shape the ring was divided up into gold and the black halves, or
        - because I also love sandwiches?

        (And why would you equate Slashdot with inappropriate food similies anyway?)

        Truthfully, we weren't even going to bother buying rings - she was going to
        • well i didn't mean to be offensive at all, in fact I tried to avoid it. I just was pointing to the no-nonsense straight to the point gadget type description you gave. Additionally, my comment doesn't make complete sense, as I'm sure you two are truly in love, but comedy is helped by lies. That's why political comics make fun of everyone regardless of afiliation or the validity of their theories. But this is going too far. At any rate, my reply was rated +4 funny because the slashdot stereotype is a geeky ga
      • Only on slashdot would you see someone describe the ultimate material symbol of his lifelong unending love, as a sandwich.

        Hardly. More than half of marriages end in divorce, and most of the rest are just sticking it out till they die so they don't look bad. This is hardly "the ultimate material symbol of his lifelong unending love."

  • deSignet International [raru.com]

    I had a great experience buying from this company, but I didn't get a custom designed ring from them. They state outright that they do custom designs. They may be open to using client-furnished materials, too.

  • Keep looking (Score:1, Informative)

    by sdirector ( 300580 )
    I designed a wedding ring for my wife when we were living in Seattle. I found a custom jewelry place, and they used the gold and diamond from her engagement ring. I came in with pictures/sketches of *sorta* what I wanted (I'm not a jewelry designer) and then they had their designer make a mock up in wax, which they used to make the mold for the gold ring. My wife loved the ring, and it is much more special for the time and attention... we are also guaranteed that no one else has one just like it. :)

  • Why design a ring? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 17, 2003 @06:43PM (#5755264)
    Pfft. Just get her a nice 800 carat cubic zirconia from Big Ass Diamonds.com [bigassdiamonds.com].

  • Save money, save yourself. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @06:47PM (#5755288)
    I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic)

    Ewww. Good grief.
    My advice. Run away, don't look back.

    • You know, I've now been married for over 5 years. Luckily I was blessed to have a wife who isn't CRAZY about jewelry. I can't remember, but I believe we spent $800-$900 for our wedding set. Now I am sitting here about two days away from serving her divorce papers. Even $200 per ring is too much. It's a ROCK for gods sake! It merely *supposedly* has value because it is a rare mineral. Well if it's so *RARE* how come everyone's got one? If I ever get married again... I'm dead serious that I'm going to
      • Now I am sitting here about two days away from serving her divorce papers

        Is she hot? Hook a Bro'da up with some digits... Come on man... I realize you too are getting a divorce, but I'm not really looking for a relationship. So tell me... Is she hot?
    • Sorry, should have made it more clear. We're not engaged yet, thus the reason for it being a touchy topic.... We have discussed engagement and decided on no longer than 6 mo. When that time comes around, then we'll talk about the rings.

      I've been in love with this girl for more than 10 years (and still in love with her, and she with me, after 2 years of dating), so I'm SURE she's the one.

      -darren
  • If you're looking to save money by going custom think again.

    My fiancee and I had her engagement ring custom made. We had them get a selection of stones to look at instead of trying to get them elsewhere, however, if they pushed issue we would have gone elsewhere. My feeling though was that we could have brought our own stones in.

    We worked with the designer to get something we liked. They know how the metals and stones work with each other. This is their field of expertise. Your job is get something you li

  • If you are looking for cheap… (Score:5, Informative)

    by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Thursday April 17, 2003 @06:48PM (#5755295) Homepage Journal
    Buy a second hand ring. They seem to have almost no resale value what so ever.... There are way to may folks out there who spent mad cash on an engagement ring and had things go sour. Their loss, your win. Do your homework, however, and it might not be in your best interest to say it came from some dead lady's estate auction or Bob's pawn shop. Sounds like your time is cheap. Take the time to know when and what a good deal is...

    Second, look for the combo engagement / wedding set. A simple 1/3 carrot diamond will save much heartache later. I'd say buy a modest CZ and swap the gem later, but that has critical fumble written all over it. You can always upgrade the gem later in life, but odds are she wont. (You will end up purchasing other jewelry later in life, however...)

    Lastly, get yourself a plain wedding band. Keep it simple, second hand preferred.
    • A simple 1/3
      carrot diamond will save much heartache later.
      Not to mention, by eating in such small amounts, you're eliminating the risk of heartburn :)
    • I agree look at pawn shops. You can always buy a used ring, then have the stone set into a ring set you like. This will save you load of money. Also look to the local jewelry shops for used items.
    • Buy a second hand ring.

      For our engagement ring we bought a second hand ring and had it re-sized, and the stone adjusted to sit lower. Much cheaper, and yet in a way more personalized than a jewelry store ring - especially since similar antique styles are no longer found at jewelry stores.

      For our wedding bands we worked with a friend of a friend who is a jeweler to design and create custom rings that combined two standard jeweler's "blanks" in a unique way.

      As to using you're own gems & metal, I sec

  • My family secret is... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by baka_boy ( 171146 ) <<lennon> <at> <day-reynolds.com>> on Thursday April 17, 2003 @06:51PM (#5755310) Homepage
    ...find a decent pawn shop in the area, and check out the stones and settings they have. If you've done some looking at more "reputable" jewelry stores, and learn how to look at a stone with a loupe to check for visible flaws, color, etc., you can get a very nice piece of "ice" for about 1/3 the price, and they'll usually throw in a simple setting in white or yellow gold for free.

    My parents did it, (no engagement ring, just wedding bands) I've done it already with the engagement ring, and I think I'll probably be able to get her to go for it on the wedding bands, as well.

    Going the custom-design route can be very cool, but unless you know a jewelry designer and/or metalsmith, it's probably just a good way to end up with some very nice mental images or sketches of the ring of your dreams.

  • weddding rings (Score:3, Funny)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:05PM (#5755385) Journal
    Sure, wedding rings are traditional, but i think a cock ring would be more practical. At least more useful on your wedding night.

    • what?! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why would you put a ring on your chicken?

      Actually, why the hell would you even bring a chicken on your honeymoon???
    • Genital piercins, while interesting, functional and exiciting, are not really the best means to express your undying love for someone.

  • Wait (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NickDngr ( 561211 )
    My advice to you is to wait to get married. It's probably already too late for you, but it is good advice for anyone else thinking of getting married. There is no reason to rush into getting married. Your marriage is more likely to last if you wait until you are more established befor you tie the knot.. You won't have to fight about money, you won't be tempted to start a family that you can't afford, and you won't start making joint purchases that you don't have money for.

  • artists that do jewelry (Score:5, Informative)

    by BigBir3d ( 454486 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:09PM (#5755402) Journal
    When my Dad passed away, my Mom had the 3 rings (engagement, his/hers wedding bands) melted down and made into a custom ring using the diamond from the engagement ring. The guy that did the work (Phoenix AZ) is an artist that specializes in jewelry, not a jeweler that does custom work. You couldn't buy the stones or the metal (gold silver whatever) from him. His work was flawless, and my Mom will be forever happy with the ring. And he did not charge jewelers prices, in fact we were all surprised how inexpensive it was, considering the obvious quality.

    Remember, gold usually can only me formed once or twice before surface pitting becomes a issue. Make sure any "used" gold is not a re-formed ring.

    --

    On a side note, if you can't talk to your fiance about the engagement ring because its a "touchy subject" she may not be the one for you. Common interests and understanding speak volumes.

    Good luck. :)

    • Re:artists that do jewelry (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Remember, gold usually can only me formed once or twice before surface pitting becomes a issue.

      This is, of course, completely wrong. Practically every ounce of gold out there has been melted and formed more times than you can count. We're not pulling gold out of the ground by the ton, you know! That's why it's expensive!

      Here's whatcha do. Go to Canada and visit their national mint. Yeah, yeah, I know. Canada: pfft, whatever. But seriously, their national mint makes the finest gold coins in the world. Tho
    • When "recasting" gold, some new gold is always added in. I hope everyone knows that jewelry is not pure gold. The alloy has various metals to change the color (pure gold is very yellow) and increase the strength.

      It also has zinc in it to keep the alloy from oxidizing and pitting.

      There should be some private craftsmen that work in jewlery.

      If you want a wedding band, talk to your dentist.

      I waxed and cast my wife's and my weeding rings, we were both very happy with them.

      A custom ring, being unique, makes
    • The guy that did the work (Phoenix AZ) is an artist that specializes in jewelry ...

      Name? Address? Would love to give him more business.
    • I had our rings made from family gold. I got two sets made (I like white gold and she likes yellow). The rings came out very nicely, and contain much more gold than a similar type ring would if made commercially. I say go for it. We had my parent's original wedding bands and our class rings melted down to make our wedding bands, and are very happy with the results. Each of my rings weighs almost 19 grams, which is nice because I don't have to worry so much about denting or bending while using tools.
  • There is no such thing as a wedding band. It is called a wedding ring. He should be hit with a shoe for saying such a thing. That name is a fabrication of the corrupt dogs in the jewelry industry.
    • There is no such thing as a wedding band

      Sure there is. They do poor renditions of popular music at half the price of your typical bar bands.... :-)

  • Stylish wedding ring concepts (Score:4, Funny)

    by S. Baldrick ( 565691 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:15PM (#5755443)
    Nothing says I love you like a simple gold band engraved with the runes of the black speech of Mordor. Why years from now your spouse will be fondly calling it her "preciousss."
  • My wife and I got engaged a few years ago, and we didn't have much money. We didn't have much money either, but we did get diamonds from different sections of our family. Not high quality diamonds, but I'd take family heirlooms over commercial diamonds any day.

    We couldn't afford two rings, so we designed a single ring that had two parts: An engagement band that had a few diamonds on it which she wore for a year, and a wedding band that fit around the engagement band. It cost far less then two different rings.

    They want to sell me their diamonds and gold

    You may not be able to use your own gold.

    Most jewelers are very picky about their gold quality, and don't want to run into the chance of your gold being less pure, and thus harder to work with (Big deal with working with small details).

    We ended up selling some of our gold to the jewler that made our ring, for around the jewler-market price (which is less then what you see in Wall Street Journal).

    However, I do know that there are jewelers (mostly smaller shops) who would use your gold. Just be persistent.

    When it comes down to the design, should I just work with my wife-to-be to create sketches to give a designer, or is something more needed?

    I'm a big fan of feminism: Equal rights, and equal responsibility :). It's not very romantic, but you and your wife-to-be should design the ring together. It's going to be on her finger, and she probably cares about the design more then you anyways, so she should have input.

    As for how to choose a jeweler, the guy who designed her ring was nice, but slow, so we won't recommend him. However, we really liked these two places:

    - There's another place on College Ave. in Berkeley or Oakland called "The Family Jules" or something. They were our second choice for my ring, and they had alot of rings for women also.

    - I really liked the family who did my ring. I got a rose-gold keltic-style band at MacManus and Sons [macmanusandson.com] on Shattuck in Berkeley. They are very well known (especially in the Geek community), and I've had a number of people comment on their high quality and friendly store. Mr. MacManus is a nice guy, and he cleans and fixes my ring for free.

    My wife and I had 4 sketches, we took it to several jeweler, and had them draw out a better sketch. We chose our jewler based on price, design and personality. However, I wouldn't recommend him to anyone, because he was slow.

    We talked to 4 different artists. Two of them were recommended by friends, and the other two were selling their pretty goods at the Ren Faire.
  • I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic)

    I assume by this comment that your WTB places a high value on the rings she gets out of the deal. If she is truly the right woman for you...she wouldn't care how good the ring was...because it's just a thing...it's not important...the commitment to each other is the important thing.
    • I assume by this comment that your WTB places a high value on the rings she gets out of the deal. If she is truly the right woman for you...she wouldn't care how good the ring was...because it's just a thing...it's not important...the commitment to each other is the important thing.

      Alternatively, she could be a real Babe...

  • Computer Designed Wedding Bands (Score:3, Informative)

    by echo ( 735 ) <(echo) (at) (thebucket.org)> on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:28PM (#5755509) Homepage Journal
    We had our wedding bands made here in Little Rock, AR at a place called "Cecil's Fine Jewelry"... We took in a sketch and the guy designed them using a CAD-like program specifically designed for ring design.. He would render shots of the rings and email us the results.. The the CAD file was shipped to California somewhere and was carved on a computer controlled milling machine. This resulted in a wax version of the rings. Then it was a simple thing to cast the real rings from the wax one by making molds, etc.

    Here's a computer rendering of the rings.
    Rendering [thebucket.org]

    Here's the final rings.
    Real Rendering [thebucket.org]
  • Another ask Slashdot about wedding rings/bands... is there some taboo about re-reading old discussions? how often do topics need to re-emerge? Really, should certain topics be on a recurrent posting schedule? how about case mods? or anything holiday oriented? (for that matter can we just get a monthly windows security alert?)

    I'm off topic and proud.
    • pretty sure that last discussion was about "high tech" wedding rings. Like marking it with binary encoding, incorporating a Java chip, etc.

      This is a different vein... simply, what do geeks (and poor geeks) do for wedding rings. Nothing wrong with that. Some of us actually get married, want to have kids, etc.

      Personally, this stuff is refreshing. I'm getting sick of articles about new cell phone gadgets, the RIAA, or whatnot.
    • Well, I heard the policy is that stories will only get posted three times or more on April first.
  • Check out Wave [clueinc.net].
    He does really good work and is a very no-bullshit sort of guy.

  • Communicate with your fiance IMMEDIATELY! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:38PM (#5755557) Journal

    I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic),...

    A few people have already said something along these lines, but let me make it a bit more explicit. If this topic gets her emotional than perhaps you'd better do whatever the hell she wants. She clearly cares about this issue and I don't think you are doing yourself a service by researching something behind her back. That is, unless you feel equally passionate about the subject of engagement rings (however, most guys don't). At the very least should be discussing this openly with her. I think she's going to be mucho pissedo (that's Spanish for "very upset") that you are soliciting the opinions of a bunch of online geeks that you've never met before sitting down with her and having a very heart-to-heart talk about this. Remember, if there is one thing that women want, it's to be the #1 priority in your life. She wants you to listen to her opinions and feelings. Not to tell her there are "better ways".

    Personally, I would discuss the wedding ring issue with your girlfriend RIGHT NOW and make sure she's at least open to options. If she's not, then drop it. Do what she wants. If she is open to new ideas, THEN start to do your research, perhaps getting her to help you. I don't know your girlfriend but most women would not be pleased to find out that you've done all this research on ring alternatives without even discussing the idea with her first.

    GMD

  • Dental implement maker? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eagle7 ( 111475 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @07:55PM (#5755699) Homepage
    My father-in-law custom made our wedding bands, he makes dental bridges and implements (correct term?) for a living. The skills are pretty similar.

    That's sort of along the lines of the person who recommended an artist... try to find someone with the skills to do it that might be willing to do it on the side.

  • Advice (Score:2)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 )

    Some of these questions have popped up on Slashdot earlier and you can search older stories for some suggestions.

    Two important things.

    It's vitally important you and your mate-to-be feel very comfortable about communicating with one another honestly. You should be able to ask her what she thinks about jewelry, engagement rings, wedding bands. And she should be able to tell you honestly what she thinks ("Really - everythings fine!" [goes off to pout]). If it turns out that she doesn't say what she means, t

  • I got my wife's engagement ring made in a store in Walnut Creek (a fairly large town in the East SF Bay Area). I wish I could remember the name. I think it was something like Goldsmith of Walnut Creek. Anyway, I do believe they were on Main Street, on the East side of the street. Doing a quick search on superpages for that gives me this address/phone: 1362 North Main St. 925-937-5430.

    They took the diamonds that I gave them. I picked out a setting and a sapphire, and they made the ring exactly as I wan
  • My wife's diamond was a famly heirloom. For the engagement ring, we had it set into a white gold estate piece we got inexpensively. The jewler cut us a deal since we had to have custom bands (his and hers) made to order if we wanted them to match. He cut us a deal on the engagement ring and we gave him the business for the bands.
  • Mission College has a great jewelry making program, they are in Santa Clara, talk to the instructors, Ileen Hill was great 10 years or so ago.

  • I think society has you a bit trained about what is acceptable. I put it simply: Diamonds are murder. Diamonds support terror. [allafrica.com]

    So-called conflict diamonds are re-sourced via Amsterdam, just like oil from Iraq was re-routed via Turkey. Diamonds only have value because of their monopoly status [professionaljeweler.com], too. Please think of this before committing to diamonds.

    Much better to go with semi-precious stones. Can you imagine the trouble over losing a ring worth over $1000? It still surprises me that this is often the most

    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but the poster never mentioned diamonds.

      All he said was that the engagement ring was a "touchy subject". Perhaps she feels the same way you do, or perhaps he does. I don't claim to know.

      It is true that some diamonds end up going through the hands of terrorist groups. Others do not. Believe it or not, there are even ways of finding out where a given diamond comes from, and thus one can be careful not to "support terror" when buying a diamond. For example, hty www.wholesalecanadiand [wholesalec...amonds.com]
  • I'll repeat what I posted a few weeks ago when someone else asked this very same question.

    When my wife and I got married we didn't have alot of money. We took my parents (they were dead) wedding rings and had the gold melted down and combined into two new rings. We wanted them to be special and we'd always been interested in the topology and symbolism of a mobius strip (one sided one edged object).

    We found a local designer and presented our request and made him a couple of mobius strips outta paper so he

  • You should get her a plain gold band (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mordant ( 138460 ) on Thursday April 17, 2003 @09:11PM (#5756186)
    that expands and contracts to fit the wearer's finger, confers the power of invisibility, and displays odd-looking runes on its interior, when heated.

    And when you talk to your "Precious", she'll think you mean
    -her-!
  • Ummmm... wedding bands are the inexpensive ones. It's the 'engagement' ring which often costs a mint. The wedding band is just a plain band of gold. Ours were about $70 for the pair, and there wasn't much design put into them, just specifying the size. Or are people wearing something really weird and ornate now for a wedding ring?
    • Yes, they are less expensive by far, but my wife and I found that my ring was much more expensive than hers due to size, style, etc. Mine was a gold on platinum very simple design for something like $400, hers was a simple white gold for something around $120 each (we got two - one goes on each side of her engagement ring which is yellow gold.) They are very simple plain smooth bands. For something you wear all the time, getting something fancy / ornate doesn't make much sense. It will get a little dinged u
  • Now I've seen everything: a dupe Ask Slashdot [slashdot.org] (well, sort of).
  • If so, check out LifeGem [lifegem.com] as a source for your diamond. No, it's not necessarily cheap, but it makes the subject more pertinent to this site.
  • i'd suggest that you check with a local machine shop ... my wife and i had a custom engraving on the outside of our rings ... in hebrew text, it reads "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li", which translates to "i am my beloved, and my beloved is mine" ... we live in Boston, and you think it'd be easy to find a jeweler here willing to do this engravement work ... but, no ... we wandered all around the city, and never came up with someone ... most people either wouldn't be able to do the hebrew glyphs or they only knew how
    • Very interesting. Thanks for the info. I work for a guy who does 3D biotech work. [dougstruthers.com] I might be able to "borrow" some time in the studio to work on something. I know there are some truly amazing artist/craft people in the Bay Area (especially on the coast) so now my only problem is finding the right one to work with. Thanks, -darren
  • My parents are Jewish, and the jewish tradition is to not have stones in the wedding band. (This comes from the fact that originally, jewels have 'negotiable' value, whereas precious metal's value is 'absolute'. And a marrige contract is just that, a contract.)

    Anyway, being the semi-geeks that they are, they have Moebius rings. Neat.
  • If you're using your own diamonds and you don't know the dealer all that well, be careful that your stones don't get switched for lower quality ones.
  • i just found out what my wife liked and then went to a jeweler in my hometown and had them design it

    half the price of where i live and she loves the ring
  • Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

    Well, not to say your upcoming wedding isn't important, but I can't quite see how it all relates to the general genre of this site. It seems I've had a growing concern regarding the contents of Slashdot since mid last year, and I often question / wonder how one chooses an everyday delemma over a funky new scientific discovery to post to the geek community.

    I apologise if this is the wrong place for such a comment, but hasn't anybody else noticed the rising trend

  • Hmm. (Score:2)

    by GiMP ( 10923 )
    When my wife and I became engaged, we went to the jewelers and picked out a ring together. Upon putting on the ring we chose, she immediately turned red :) It was 200 (polish) zlotys which was about $50 at the time.

    Luckily for me, diamonds are not traditional for her; infact, she did not want a diamond. We simply bought gold bands with a cut design in them and had them engrave the title of 'our song' inside, "No More Shall We Part" (Nick Cave). Each ring was $100.

    There isn't any use is spending loads of
  • Tom did a great job listening to our design constraints (small fingers, unconsciously abusive to jewelry) and made great rings for us. They are mostly platinum with some yellow gold. I think he spent about two hours or so going over our design and making changes to make it structurally sound, to protect the diamonds better, etc. He explained how the rigs would wear, suggested certain features (mostly invisible things to make the rings more comfortable to wear), and did a great job. Not cheap, but about what

  • In Europe... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Drunken_Jackass ( 325938 ) on Friday April 18, 2003 @07:29AM (#5758346) Homepage
    back in the day, there was no engagement ring. Well, there was, but it was the wedding band. You would pick out your wedding bands, and then your fiance would wear the band on the ring finger on her right hand until the wedding day, when it was moved to the left hand.

    If your fiance balks at not getting an engagement ring, tell her you're following in your (hopefully) German heritage. It'll probably be a good conversation starter, and sounds better than, "We decided not to get an engagement ring." Which, BTW, translates into, "My stupid fiance is too cheap to buy be a frikken ring!"

    Just a thought.

  • I recommend taking a look at Tradeshop [tradeshop.com]. There is a wealth of information on their website, and be sure to take a look at their specials. You can also read client letters and see previews of client (who have given permission) custom rings in the making

    And, yes, this is who made my wife's engagement and wedding rings and my wedding band (custom platinum and gold celtic design). The customer service was outstanding, there was always a real person to talk to at the other end of the telephone.

    There websit

  • Better make sure the engagement ring is the appropriate percentage of your yearly wages, or you will never hear the end of it.

    If you want to truly test the strength of your relationship, propose over the phone. *ring* "Hi! This is your engagement ring! Will you marry me?"
  • First, congrats :)

    My wife and I went through the same thing a little over a year ago looking for rings (in fact, our anniversary is Monday ... we're getting her a motorcycle so we can ride together ... screw "paper anniversary", this is our "v-twin anniversary"). This is something I've spent alot of time on a year ago, and we are very happy with the results, so this is one in-depth posting :)

    We found a number of custom jewelers online and emailed/phoned a few of them to get a feel for the process. We ende
  • When my wife and I were engaged we were living in New Zealand. We did not like the look of the standard rings available or their price so we ended up having a jeweler make one for us. My wife designed one that had the jewels (and opal and 2 reasonable diamonds) in a patterns that she liked plus the added feature that the wedding band slots into the ring to form one unit. I bet that your Hunka-Burning-Love would really enjoy designing her own ring for the conversation piece value assuming that you can fi
  • I'm getting a matched set of handmade turkshead rings for my wedding. Loren at golden knots [goldenknots.com] is great, and the samples we saw were wonderful.

    After my experience dealing with him, I would happily steer some more business his way. Unfortunately, this comment is a day late and probably won't be read by anyone.
  • A mechanical engineering classmate of my from undergrad made his own wedding bands. Since we had access to a machine shop, he bought some titanium stock and went to work on a lathe. I don't really recommend this unless you have a decent amount of machining experience. Torus-shaped parts are tricky to make.

  • Get a job, get the diamond (Score:3, Informative)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Friday April 18, 2003 @09:06PM (#5763068) Homepage Journal
    Unless your girlfriend is unusual (in a good way, perhaps) she wants a nice big diamond. She wants to show it to her friends and her friends want to see it. If her friends don't see it they'll think you're a creep. It's been explained to me as a 'deposit'.

    Yep, stupid social traditions, but there they are.

    If you want to avoid supporting DeBeers, get a second-hand diamond, they're "forever", remember? If you're picky, you'll have to get new (I wanted a brilliant cut VVSI G .75 with a blue phosphorescence and depth and table percentages right around 60 [do your homework, everyone tells my wife her diamond is the most sparkly they've seen, but it's just cut right and not from the department store], so I didn't have much luck locally) but you can save about half from buying from a direct importer from Isreal (where they cut most diamonds). I had good luck with these folks [diamondcutters.com].

    For the Wedding bands, we did well at Sam's Club. Simple gold bands can be had for about $50 each, I think we splurged for the $70 variety. But the wedding band isn't important, there's a ceremony coincident with them which is far more important. There's no engagement ceremony though, so the engagement ring is very important.
  • think about it way in advance. I'm getting hitched in 2 weeks and being a procrastinator, put off the ring buying stuff until Thursday. There were some lovely patterned bands at the jewellers, but they would take 3 weeks to order in, too late (My fiancee's getting his late father's ring so he's all taken care of). So I'm just having a $50 plain-as gold band and then maybe later we'll both get something custom made up for a 10th anniversary gift or something.
  • My wife had long commented that she had a number of stones, but that she didn't have a nice star sapphire.

    Add to that, the fact that since star sapphires can be manufactured, nobody wants to pay for a real one [followed by the fact that nobody wants a fake one, since they all must be fake], so good star sapphires were relatively hard to find.

    So anyhow, for our engagement, I went down to Rocky's Gold and Silver in Weyers Cave, VA, and saw a 5mm x 7 mm estate star sapphire mounted with four microdimonds in
  • I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic), but she might be willing to go with a simple engagement ring, or just put the money toward a wedding band.


    You're getting married in 8 months and you can't talk to your soon to be wife because it's a touchy subject? It's not gonna get any easier. Wait til the issue of finances come up. I hope you are prepared.

  • Jewelers charge 200% markup, they call it the Triple Keystone price.

    The problem is, they are charging that because they mostly have to. They need to have a jeweler on staff to put people's stones back in the mounting, size rings, etc. Jewelers expect to be paid reasonably well. They have to pay insane insurance on all of the diamonds that are just lying around.

    Now, the problem is, it's not going to save you any to have the jeweler do stuff for you. Any savings in them not needing to keep stock goes to
  • http://www.ganoksin.com/ This is a jewelers resource, and home of the jeweler's forum "Orchid". You should be able to find someone through Orchid that can help you out.

  • I'd try calling/emailing some of the re-enacters [google.com] in your area and asking them. There's often good tradesfolk among them who are happy to work with special designs.

    Good luck, and congratulations.

    Ralf

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