Ring-A-Ling! Hello, Hello....

Hello....my precious!

I got my wedding band! (and the Black Eyed Peas song 'Ring-A-Ling' was playing on the radio on my way back to work from the jeweler's, how perfect)

Because I'm the nicest future wife ever, I didn't make Mr. Cola go wedding band shopping with me. Originally we were going to go pick our bands together, but he ended up getting his before mine (which I'll share in a future post), so I didn't want to bore him with an hour or two of me drooling over sparkly things! So instead I made an appointment to pop into Steve Padis on my lunch break.

I posted about a month ago on wedding band styles I was eying, but was having trouble visualizing how they would go with my e-ring. This was my favorite ring from what I'd found online:

{Style #2598B12X}

I took all my inspiration pictures in with me, and even looked at some similar bands, but as I'd suspected, they didn't really go with my engagement ring all that well. I didn't want to take away from my e-ring, and this style with more diamonds was just too much; it competed with my e-ring.

(unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post were taken by me)

The jeweler then called their rep at Verragio, to find out what they recommended to go with my e-ring, and came back with a print out of one that had a matching pave band, with 4 larger diamonds on the top....for $5,700! Uh, my e-ring without the center stone was almost that expensive, and that was way out of my budget (I was looking closer to $2k). So I gave up on the more blingy wedding band idea.

We then found another Verragio band, that had just the matching pave diamonds, and a line splitting the paves down the middle, that matched my ring perfectly. I really liked that the paves lined up to circle half way around the band exactly like on my e-ring. Except it was a little wider than I liked....and $3,700.

So, moving on, the jeweler and I decided that as long as it went with my e-ring, it didn't really matter if my band was a Verragio, and we looked at some less expensive bands by other designers.

And it was at this point that I decided if I didn't get an eternity ring, the band spinning around on my finger was going to drive me crazy for the rest of my life. Until this point I'd sort of thought eternity bands were a waste, why put diamonds on the bottom where nobody would see them? Well, the answer is (at least for me), put diamonds on the bottom, because the bottom will become the top, and you won't have to constantly readjust your band to have the diamonds showing!

We then found this eternity band that I really liked; it didn't overpower my e-ring, it was decently low profile enough to not cover too much of the side view my e-ring (the whole reason I picked this e-ring in the first place), and the price was right at $799. However, the price was right because it was only in white gold, and I didn't think it quite matched the platinum of my e-ring. But it was a step in the right direction at least!


On we continued down the jewelry case, looking and trying, when about an hour and a half in, she found it! The perfect split pave band (almost identical to the $3,700 Verragio one), but a bit thinner, and it was an eternity band! I didn't have to debate long with myself to go a tiny bit over budget....it was perfect! Ok, fine, I went $575 over my budget, but I still think it was a steal considering it has .7 total carats (in a size 4), which is over twice the number of diamonds as in the very similar Verragio band.

And so here it is, my wedding band!


It even looks great by itself, another one of my criteria.


If anyone is looking for more details, it's #106819 by Precision Set, and it usually has .75 total carats, but mine has less because it's a smaller size. You can find it here.

{Source}

I'm so ecstatic! I can't wait to pick it up in about a month, and finally get to wear it in June!

How did your wedding band search go? Did you have to try on a lot of styles to find the perfect match, or were you lucky enough to get an engagement ring that came as a set with a matching band?