Jewelry shopping can be intimidating. That’s why we started Ask Holden, our blog where we answer your FAQs, break down scary industry lingo, and guide you in finding the perfect piece of jewelry.
Ok! You’re getting married! Nice! Now what? Time to purchase a wedding ring. Okay! Now what...? You’ve come to the right place: we’ve created the Official Holden Wedding Band Buying Guide, a checklist of things to consider as you’re picking out that perfect ring. With our help, you can be a Certified Ring Buying Expert (which is not a real thing, but feel free to add to your LinkedIn anyway, we would totally endorse you 😘). We've got a TL;DR short checklist up front, and we go into some more details on each item later in the article.
Wedding Band Buying Guide
1. Find your ring size.
2. Do you want your ring to match your partner’s ring?
3. Do you want your wedding band to match your engagement ring (if you are choosing to wear one)?
4. How wide do you want your ring?
5. What metal do you want your ring to be?
6. What karat do you want your wedding band to be?
7. Do you want a diamond wedding ring? Would you prefer lab grown or natural diamonds?
8. How much money do you want to spend...and who will be purchasing the ring, anyway?
9. When do you need the ring by?
Find your ring size
No matter what ring you buy, it’s most important for it to actually fit your finger! We don’t recommend using a piece of paper or string to measure your ring size, as these methods can be inaccurate. Instead, sign up for a free Ring Size Kit so you can find the perfect fit. By the way, all of our rings are comfort fit.
Do you want your ring to match your partner’s ring?
It totally depends on your personal style and preferences, but sometimes partners choose to coordinate their wedding bands - either through shape, width, or metal. We recommend talking to your partner to come up with a plan for if you want to match or if you prefer to (in the words of Fleetwood Mac) go your own way. In our experience, we’ve found that couples tend to match on one or two aspects of the ring (such as metal or style), but it’s totally up to you! We’ve had couples buy identical rings and couples buy wildly different rings.
Do you want your wedding band to match your engagement ring?
If you (and/or your partner!) are choosing to pair your wedding ring with an engagement ring, it’s important to make sure the rings fit comfortably on your hand. Curved bands have become increasingly popular to accommodate traditional engagement ring settings. In addition to making sure your wedding band fits your engagement ring, you might want to think about the width, metal, and finish of your engagement ring and whether you’d like your wedding band to match or contrast. Our final word on engagement rings: we’ve seen rising trends of people of all genders rocking engagement rings and we are Here. For. It.
Shop Curved RingsHow wide do you want your ring?
At Holden, our standard widths are 1.5mm, 3mm, 4.5mm, and 6mm (to see what the widths looks like on finger, check out this reference photo). All of our rings are gender neutral, so there are definitely no rules dictating which width is right for you! We are also able to make custom widths if none of these feel quite right - just shoot us an email at help@hiholden.com to get started.
What metal do you want your ring to be?
Here at Holden, we offer rings exclusively made of recycled precious metals: white gold, rose gold, yellow gold or platinum.
White Gold: How do we make our white gold look so silver? White gold is gold that is alloyed with white metals and plated with rhodium.
Rose Gold: Rose gold rings are an increasingly popular choice, as they’re flattering with any skin tone and are a unique look.
Yellow Gold: A classic! What you think of when you think of gold.
Platinum: A platinum ring might be the right choice if you want something with a little more weight to it. Platinum is naturally white and visually identical to white gold, but it's rarer and denser (and therefore more expensive).
No precious metal is entirely scratch resistant, but we find that scratches wear together over time and give the ring a nice sheen. You may have heard of tungsten carbide as well, which is more scratch resistant, but it's a more brittle metal and could break or shatter. For more on how to pick out a metal for your wedding band, check out our blog post on the best metal for your wedding band.
What karat do you want your wedding band to be?
For starters, 24 karat = pure gold (aka what Bruno Mars sings about in the absolute classic "24 Karat Magic"). Any other karat (like 14 karat) would mean that the ring is 14 parts pure gold and 10 parts metal alloy (totaling 24 parts of metal). This means that a higher karat yellow gold ring will be a richer gold color, and a lower karat will be a flatter gold or brassier in color. This is because a higher karat ring has more actual gold in it! A rose gold ring, however, will become less pink in hue as karat increases, since a higher karat means less copper (which makes the ring pink). We've got a blog post on karat you can read to get a more in-depth description of the differences.
Do you want a diamond wedding ring? Would you prefer lab grown or mined diamonds?
Some people choose to incorporate diamonds into their rings (either to match/complement the stones in their engagement ring or to have some diamonds on their hand if they choose to forgo an engagement ring). If you choose to go the diamond route, the next question is - would you like your diamonds lab grown or mined? We at Holden exclusively use lab grown diamonds because they are more sustainable, conflict-free, and less expensive than mined diamonds! You can read more about lab diamonds, how they’re made, and why we love them on our lab grown diamond blog post.
How much money do you want to spend on your rings and who will be buying them?
There are certainly no rules about who is going to buy the ring or how much it should cost! But it could be something you and your partner might want to discuss, whether you choose to buy each other’s rings or to purchase your own.
When do you need the ring by?
Don’t wait until the last minute! Since we custom make each ring to order, our standard turnaround time for each handmade ring is about 2.5 weeks. We recommend buying your wedding ring at least a month in advance in case you need it resized, although it can’t hurt to buy your ring even earlier! It can take one thing off your pre-wedding to-do list.
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Questions? Give us a shout at help@hiholden.com or a ring (pun intended) at 646.722.6817.
