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So this kinda mystifies me. Everyone seems to be getting these superfancy wedding bands and I don't think I had ever seen a wedding band with diamonds before I started looking at wedding websites. What I had previously perceived as normal was a plain, unornamented yellow gold band. I thought my parents were fancy with their second set of wedding bands. They were braid puzzle rings with beautiful workmanship.
So I am wondering... Is this regional? Is it something else that the Wedding Industrial Complex has conviced us that we *need*? From my perspective a plain band is much more practical. You never have to take it off. You don't have to worry about losing stones or damaging intricate carving. You just wear it and its very simplicity is a symbol of the marriage bond.
I completely understand what you are saying and with that thought it would make sense that wedding bands were plain. Bu I do think it is a regional thing. I honestly don't know any females with a plain wedding band. Most men have plain bands but the woman that I know personally have some sort of design or diamonds.
you sound slightly judgemental. i think selecting a wedding band is a highly personal choice of taste and budget. i have seen some beautiful plain bands and lovely, more intricate bands. why not let the couple decide what works best for their circumstances?
I think it is more a function of time vs. region. In the 70s and 80s and before, plain bands were the norm. So yea... that is what most women in my family have. But starting in the 90s diamond bands became more popular and now they are the norm (kind of like how yellow gold used to be the norm, now white gold is the norm). I don't know anyone who has gotten married in the last 15 years who has a plain band.
I had such a hard time finding my wedding band because everything in all of the stores had diamonds on it, and because my ering band has rope detailing on it, I wanted a simple band. I think this style is just the trend that is out now. When I would go into a store and tell them I was looking for a wedding band without diamonds, they would usually show me the one or 2 they had. I ended up ordering my band online-- simple 2mm band with milgrain edges.
My wedding band, which we have already bought, has diamonds down the band to match the diamonds down the band of my engagement ring. After we're married and I'm wearing them together, they'll match. If my e-ring band were just white gold, my band might be just white gold too. Hard to say!
it feels to me like a status thing - certain backgrounds seem to lean towards the massive sparkly wedding bands which serve mostly to show off ginormous rocks.
But there are the simpler channelset rings or rings with only one or two stones - I know people with the big sparkly rings and then those with the plain bands, and I fall somewhere in between.
But my feeling is that if it's jewelry you're going to wear everyday, you better like it a lot, whatever it looks like
To each their own right? You could apply the same logic to just about everything related to weddings (dresses, food, flowers, ceremonies, etc).
I personally didn't want a plain gold band, it's just not my style.
for me, it's a religious thing. i'm jewish so my band has to be uncut. sometimes i'm jealous of fancier bands because mine is plain, but i love what mine symbolizes.
My wedding band is super fancy... and it is perfect for me...
BUT my best friend got married last weekend and she got a plain white gold band as her wedding band. It was perfect for her! She is a sociologist and does a lot of work in Africa/Asia/South America and wearing a diamond wedding band is not an option.
So to each their own.
For me its a religious tradition. FH and I are Jewish and it is our tradition that wedding bands are unbroken and have no blemishes. They are of minimal value with no edges or corners.
I agree with CorgiTales. 20-30 years ago, many women had some sort of plain engagement ring too. Simple princess cut or round solitaire. Now we have side stones, WAY more variety in stone shape, etc. Tastes change, styles change, and I think wedding bands reflect that as well.
I think some rings look great with a plain band. Just like some look better with a band with some bling. It's all a matter of taste.
Just a note: Though it is traditional for Jewish bands to be un-cut, I am jewish, and I chose an ornate and detailed openwork band because that is the style I like.
At our ceremony, I am using my grandmother's band which is a complete circle with no cut-outs (to symbolize our unending love for eachother), but for my everyday band, I wanted something that fit my personality and style.
So I don't think it's really regional or cultural. It's just whatever the person pictures wearing to remind them of their DH everyday :)
My parents have very simple, yellow gold bands as well, and I'm not exactly observant so I didn't realize diamond bands even existed until I started looking at wedding stuff.
Now I notice them and realize most of my friends and the married women I know have them.
They're not for me - I want something that will be in the same style and material as my husband's when we are married (I also plan to wear it alone, without my engagement ring, most of the time). But, man, some of the sets I have seen are sparkly and gorgeous.
Personally, I don't have an engagement ring and my wedding band is a 3mm platinum band. Just a nice simple band which I love.
Part of the trend might have to do with the wedding industry making the bling-y ones the majority of hte ones available. Part of the trend might have to do with people wanting to flaunt wealth. Part of the trend might just be society saying the more bling the better. No matter what, it is easy to become surprised when you are accustomed to one idea and are smacked in the face with something totally different.
In the end, buy that which will make you the happiest.
@applejacks: Its not intended to be judgemental. It just literally did not even occur to me to get something so fancy. I totally understand that they are beautiful and that people should be able to get whatever they want and love as long as they can afford it. It seems like in some cases the feeling that you need to have a particular kind of ring causes a lot of stress and upset when it collides with the realities of limited budgets that doesn't seem that necessary to me and looks, from the outside, like it may be drive by the proverbial keeping up with the Joneses and the perceived need to have as much bling as your sister, cousin, neighbor, coworker etc. It does seem sometimes like this is an artificial need that has been generated by effective advertising on the part of the industry that sells these rings. I think that that is unfortunate. But I think that people getting lovely rings which they love and can afford is wonderful.
I also don't think it is a regional thing. I think it is a matter of preference. I am not worried aobut losing stones, damaging my ring, or losing it, so I chose to get stones in my band. I love it because is compliments my ering very nicely. It is not about greed or keeping up with the Jonses; it is about what you like, are comfortable with, and can afford. You will be wearing it for the rest of your life, and if you are the type of person that knows you will not want to upgrade later, then it makes sense to get the one you want now.
My FI and I got bands that are white gold with eachother's fingerprint on the inside. On mine however I got 5 little stones, three sapphires and two diamonds. They are quite tiny and are only there because they remind me of when we got started dating. It also matches my engagement ring. But other than the 5 tiny stones it is just a narrow white gold band to match my FI's. I do not plan on taking my band off. Maybe it is a regional thing. To each their own :)
Personally, the ring I have now is just gold, no stones but it is a very ornate style. It fits my personality, plus, I really like the idea of having something that you don't see often. I like to stand out a bit and have my own style. Here's a pic of my ring, and I don't see that many people with a style like this. So it kinda is uniquely me.
aering.jpg (46.1 KB, 79 downloads) 1 year old
In hindsight I wish I'd gotten a metal band, either plain flat metal or MAAAAYBE some sort of simple pattern/braid. I love my shared-prong eternity band, but now that I've been wearing it a month, the prongs catch on things (especially my hair!), I have to try to remember to take it off (then put it back on!!) to put lotions etc on since it gtes dirty REALLY fast, and with the diamonds, it's thicker and sticks out further from my finger which can be uncomfortable.
I do think I was swayed by the wedding machine into getting a diamond band since it's not really "me" to begin with. I wear no other jewelry, and there's nothing glitzy or flashy about me. That all said, i DO still think it's VEEERY pretty (just not functional for me)
There are a lot of wedding-realted things that I only learned about and decided I wanted after being exposed to blogs and message boards. Rings are no different.
I don't think it's regional so much as cultural and personal. I think most people plan on wearing this ring for a long, long time, so they want one that coordinates with their style and taste. Or (like me) they wanted it to match their e-ring. I may have chosen something different if it wasn't a set, but I do love how they go together.
Actually, out of all the people I know, I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to a plain wedding band, so as far as I knew, having a fancy wedding band is pretty much the norm. And I don't think it's a matter of the wedding industry telling us what we need, rather a choice of personal wants and budget.
@Nightmaiden: I love your wedding band. In fact, I think I had something very like it in my inspiration file.
@Entangled: I will probably wear mine alone much of the time as well. I wasn't even sure if my mother had an engagement ring until I asked because I don't think I had ever seen it. (Turns out she wore through the band and had it repaired twice. The third time she put it away in her jewelry box for safe keeping.) The one thing that may get me to wear it more often is that my FI got a wedding band that matches my engagement ring.
I am going to wear my grandmother's wedding ring. It is a plain band with very minimal ornamentation which is what I wanted and it is sentimental. My grandparents were happily married over 50 years when my grandmother passed away. I will be getting married exactly 3 weeks after what would have been their 70th wedding anniversy if they were alive. The only downside as far as I am concerned is that I don't get to have our initials and wedding date engraved in my ring because their already is. I may have to get my engagement ring engraved instead.
I agree that plain bands don't seem to be as common anymore (but e-rings seem fancier, too, maybe?). I think only one of my friends wears a plain band...
But that said, I got a plain gold band, mainly because of its practicality. I wanted to be able to where it all the time, even in situations where I'm afraid to wear my e-ring (like when i'm working with kids and finger paint. Ha!). Plus my e-ring is a claddaugh and I thought a fancy band would be a bit much for me.
But I agree with other posters: go with what you like and what fits your personality/lifestyle best :-)
Apparently, the stones in engagement rings have gotten larger, and stones in wedding bands have become more common, over time. Personally, I would never criticize anyone who wanted diamonds, but I am frustrated by the fact that so many seem to see a diamond as a requirement for an engagement or marriage. Come on, folks--it's a piece of jewelry, not a guarantee of a happy relationship!
NotFroofy and I decided early on that we did not want engagement rings, or wedding rings with stones. We both have plain gold bands as our wedding rings.
I wear my wedding band alone, so I wanted some diamonds.
Here is a stock photo of mine. It sparkles, and it's just flashy enough. I love it:
I always thought that I would have a plain white gold band. However, the ering my man picked has a lot of diamonds so I ended up picking a band that also has some sparkle as well. When I tried a plain band with my ering it looked a little weird.
I always thought I wanted an all yellow gold band with nothing else, but then after trying them on, I realized I wanted a little more "sparkle" and ended up getting a channel set ring with some small diamonds on the front. In the future, for whatever reason, if I want to move my e-ring to my other hand, I like how the wedding band will look on its own still.
One thing that I do think is a recent trend is having 2 diamond bands, one on top and one under the e-ring.
The first time I heard about that was about a year ago, and it seems to have really taken off.
I also thought that I would get a plain band. My sister (who is getting married in September) got a plain platinum band to go with her gorgeous but very simple platinum solitaire. My mom has a plain band as well...but my maternal grandmother had a half eternity ring...so I think that styles just change and keep coming back in fashion (yellow gold is making a come back, for example).
I fell hard for my engagement ring (we picked it out together) and it is a three-stone ring (which I swore I would never get) with micro pave stones halfway around the band. When trying on my engagement ring with plain bands, it just didn't look right. So, I'm going to get a half eternity ring...I love the way it looks, but also am sort of sad that I won't have the plain band that I imagined.
I actually think that it's more about options. Yes, you could argue that more people are willing to spend more money on bling...but I know (from what my mom has told me) in the past people just went to their local jewelery store and bought what they had in stock (which was usually the plain rings). Now, with the internet, etc. there are SO many options. As there wasn't a Birks, Tiffany's, or Blue Nile all over the country, people didn't necessarily know what was out there. Plain or blingy, all wedding rings are beautiful in their own way.
Maybe we're just spoiled by choice. :)
i also notice that most of my older relatives have plainer bands than the sets i see today, but they also usually have very diamond-y anniversary bands. i'm not sure if it's regional, but it would make sense if diamond bands were more common in wealthy areas. personally i think it's more about a lady's style, like sleek and modern vs traditional and ornate.
when husband asked me what kind of band i wanted i told him plain white gold. i even explained that i thought i wedding band should be simple, because it was such a special symbol that it didn't need sparklies all over it. we even discussed matching bands although that fell through when i found a tungsten ring for him. in the end i received a matching set, and since the "engagement" ring he chose was so ornate and antique style, the band matched with open metal work and very small diamonds. it's absolutely beautiful but i do worry about damaging it when i'm working with metal parts at my job.
i think he picked it because it was a set, not because of status or the need for it to show his wealth, and it was much easier for him to do it that way and know that they "matched". i notice most stores these days sell wedding sets with a sparkly band, so maybe they got smart and realized most guys don't want to futz around with picking 2 rings that maybe his bride will like together. by pairing an ornate band with engagement rings they make more money.
i have considered buying an inexpensive plain white gold band to wear alone when the need arises.
untitled.jpg (18.2 KB, 50 downloads) 1 year old 
I also wear my wedding ring alone and I wear my e-ring on my right hand. What surprises me isn't fancy/ classic and simple, it is more that a lot of couples get rings that don't match each other. My parents had plain gold bands and they matched so I always thought of the mens and womens as a "set". Ours are a set but they arent identical. I'll see if I have a picture :)
I think it is a generational thing. My FMIL, her friends, and some of the older teachers at work (in their 50's or so) tend to have round solitares with a plain band and a plain yellow gold wedding band. My friends, FSIL, etc tend to have a wider variety of rings. However MANY of them have princess cut rings with side pave and then a wedding band with diamonds in white gold. I think it's just a sign of the times, who knows what the popular trends will be in 20 years!
Here is my ring- his is the tiny stock photo, but you can see they have the same pattern, so they are a set.
I don't know of anyone with a plain gold band exept for my parents! In fact, I don't know of anyone with yellow gold wedding bands, everyone wears platinum. The look of "ice" just seems to be much more popular nowerdays. And diamonds on platinum does look really pretty! But, I had that with my ex and so I'm really glad to get something different.
My Fi always wanted a plain 18k yellow gold band. Yellow gold to me is classic, old and romantic - I like the way it looks on my skin and it's much lighter than platinum, which I like. But it's a little hard to find something in 18k yellow gold, especially since I want a very intricately carved wedding band. I love the look of old-looking bands, like antiques you'd find decades ago! It makes me smile just thinking about them, but it's difficult to find something that looks so old, brand-new.
About the getting scratched up part, it's interesting but my Fi espcially wanted a shiny, thick band so that he can scratch it up. He's really looking forward to it! I'm kinda the same way - I think the real old rings with the engraving smooth after years of wear is really nice. I don't know ... it looks well used, I like that 
As for taking it off while gardening, I'd do that anyway, and Fi does too, so it doesn't bother us much.
I will have a plain yellow gold band - I always envisioned having a plain band but kept and open mind while trying on different styles. In the end, the plain band worked best for me.
I am getting a plain white gold band for several reasons: my e-ring is large and I need something to balance it, a plain band will not get caught in the cotton gloves I might wear for my career and for band, nor will there be any crannies for dirt and horse hair to be caught in when I ride.
FH wants a sparkly, channel set ring (with sapphires) becuase he wants his own bit of sparkle. I think part of it may be that he really wants to show off that he's married (past self esteem issues). Since he works with computers getting things caught will not be a concern like it will be for me. It was his decision and I support it.
I think that, as @corgi said, it used to be more common to have a plain band and that band was usually yellow gold. Now it is very common to have diamonds on the band and the band is usually white gold.
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