Jewellery fashions shift and undulate with the times, but nobody really expected female wedding rings to change. Women’s wedding rings have always been very traditionally designed, and traditional designs don’t change, particularly in jewellery. But the sands have shifted, and women’s wedding rings now compete with another kind of design. That other option, of course, is the wedding band. In the beginning, many fashion experts were somewhat confused by this.
It made sense for men, maybe, because male jewellery is generally minimalistic, and the wedding band suits this minimalist style well – however, most fashion experts did not expect wedding bands for women to become as popular as they did – and certainly not to become more popular than wedding bands for men.
Why, then, did women embrace wedding bands in this manner? Probably because they offer some very specific advantages over more traditional wedding rings. The classic woman’s wedding ring, of course, has a huge centrally-placed diamond. This makes it somewhat impractical to wear on a regular basis – and certainly not wearable for the long term, as there have been quite a few cases where the diamond’s metal seat deformed over the years and caused the diamond to fall out. Wedding bands provide an elegant and usable alternative, because they have a slimmer form factor and are much less prone to damage. This is not to say that wedding bands never have diamonds, but even when they do, they are not seated as high as in a traditional wedding ring, and not centrally located – rather, they are encrusted into the circumference of the ring, again reducing the chances for damage.
There are other advantages as well – particularly in the face of the public backlash against the diamond industry these days, the gold jewellery expert expands on this further. Wedding bands allow women to eschew diamonds entirely, and select a more holistic design. Furthermore, the wedding band is more friendly toward the usage of more exotic metals such as platinum or palladium. Most people will agree that there are few things as strikingly beautiful as a woman’s wedding band made out of brushed platinum.
