As I mentioned in my post about our wedding, Austin and I a few months ago debarked upon the path of creating customized bands. My engagement ring (pictured below) is an unusual shape so we needed to create an interlocking band. As for Austin’s… well he deserved some bling! Here are some thoughts and results…
The Planning
So this is my engagement ring… sorry for the quality. Shinies are hard to photograph with a cell phone camera.
Austin bought it at Diamond Exchange. He wanted to get a tension setting… but those are SUPER expensive so he found this unique setting which mimics the look. The experience was positive so we went back to the store for our bands.
I had read in some wedding book of a Victorian tradition where you spell out words with gemstones. Me not being a big diamond fan and the fact that using gems are a money saver we decided to run with it. While those crazy Victorians spelled out words like “L-O-V-E” and “H-O-P-E”, Austin and I decided upon initials. Austin would have two sapphires for Sheila Suarez. Where I would have A-D-F for Austin David Flores (as you will see later this was harder then I hoped).
The Jeweler is a fantastic designer so with my input he came up with this for my band:
Austin meanwhile picked out a white gold/”frosted” band. He then designed his own gem setting, very reminiscent of this TrueBlood ring:
Only instead of two bands… its one… and Sapphires that make the infinity symbol… much like the tear drop stones on mine. So really not like the above at all.
Results!
So creating customized interlocking rings is not for the weary… It took a lot of visits to the store to ensure the bands fit the original engagement ring perfectly. And even then its not perfect as to be expected from a man made metallic object. But it looks darn good! Austin’s was of course much easier. Behold my precious…
My band separated. We have dubbed it Bling-A-Tron.
So the final stones actually don’t spell out A-D-F but S-D-F for Suarez De Flores (my future last name). I really wanted to match Austin’s name but after an extensive search the only F stone was the Mexican Fire Opal (left stone). And orange does not match any A stone… So for Suarez we used Spacerite Garnet (right stone) which is a light orange. Luckily Diamond Exchange did their research and was able to figure this out for me!
Final Thoughts
Creating customized bands are expensive but I would do it again in a heart beat! This is creating a legacy for your family and a hand me down.
If I had to do it again though I might have done a little bit more checking around as far as jewelers. Though I will say Diamond Exchange really pulled through. I heard though that putting in an alchemy request on Etsy.com can be great and more affordable.
Also using gem stones while cheaper can be tricky as they are not even close to as hard as Diamonds so may break easily. My fire opal broke during construction and they had to replace it. Luckily my jeweler constructed it so that when put together the Diamond sticks out slightly and protects the site stones, but still it is a risk that I will have to maintain. Here is a scale to give you an idea! The problem is this scale is not a set ratio so the difference between level 9 and 10 is .. well .. ten fold.
In the end, you will probably end up sautering together your ring. While nice to be like a puzzle, after the wedding day you will most likely never wear them separated (mostly because wearing the band alone could risk breakage as its created to be together). And if sautered together the ring is more protected from warping and breakage. Kinda shame… probably will do it myself… :/ And of course this costs more money.
So have fun and don’t pull out your hair!
Shinies – S