The Essentials of Buying Wedding Rings

There is perhaps no more poignant or significant part of the wedding ceremony than the exchanging of the wedding rings. It is a symbolic representation of the beauty of your love, not to mention the never ending and unconditional love the couple is vowing to each other. Furthermore, the wedding bands are the one item from your wedding that you will keep with you for the rest of your life - even longer than those crystal keepsake mementos from your wedding which will last you for years!

As a result, buying the wedding rings is an essential part of your wedding preparation. Fortunately, for most it can be the fun part too – as long as they are equipped with the basic understanding of the elements that go into modern wedding jewelry.

Metals

Fourteen karat gold in either yellow or white gold is the most common material used to make wedding rings in North America because 14 karat gold offers what most North American’s consider the best combination of purity and strength. It is possible to get a more pure gold alloy (24 karat is pure gold) than the 14 karat gold, but the more pure the gold, the softer the metal and the less durable it will be.

Other popular metal choices include platinum, titanium, and silver. Silver is a very soft metal that can be damaged by everyday life and will tarnish over time - presenting a symbolism that none of us wish for our marriage.

Platinum is an extremely hard metal that provides an almost white sheen that can set off the sparkle of the diamond in a wedding band beautifully.

Titanium, on the other hand has the advantage of weighing approximately one third of what gold weighs while also being extremely strong and as such is quickly becoming popular for use in wedding rings.

Diamonds

Diamonds are measured in terms of clarity, size, cut, and color. A young couple's choice for these factors are, for the most part, a matter that is primarily concerned with their preference and what their budget will allow for them to spend on their wedding rings but without a little definition of each item it can be difficult to know what you are buying.

Clarity

Needless to say, we would all prefer the clearest diamond we can afford in our wedding band, but how do you know what is what apart from depending on the salesman's assurance? There is, fortunately...

Continue reading, "Buying Wedding Rings"

Wedding Jewelry: Understanding Diamond Weights

In order to be sure that we make a wise purchase when we buy our wedding jewelry it is necessary that we understand diamond weights. Without understanding this most basic element of the precious stone markets like diamond weights the likelihood that we will overpay is much greater. Conversely, by understanding this single issue we will be more equipped to know what we are looking at and how to ask the right questions.

Most all of us know that diamonds are measured in carat weight (also sometimes spelled karat and will be used interchangeably in this article). What most of us don't know is what that means. What is a karat? How does a carat relate to a measurement that most of us can relate to?
Put simply, one karat weighs 200 milligrams.

It is the tradition of the market that prevents us from weighing diamonds in terms of milligrams. No doubt if diamonds were initially discovered in the last twenty years we would, but diamonds have been with us for a long time so we use the term carats (karats).

Carats

The word carat comes from...

Continue reading, "Wedding Jewelry: Understanding Diamond Weights"