Hi!
My man and I are picking up our rings this week and we love them. We want to wear them right now. But the wedding is in November.
I've heard some cultures (Scandinavians?) have a tradition in which the bride and groom to-be wear their wedding bands on their right hand until the wedding, and then during the wedding ceremony they switch the rings to their left hands. This is what we're thinking of doing.
What do you think? Will that kill the mood on the wedding day? Should the rings be "sacred" and not taken out of their box until the big day?
Thanks!
*****
TOTAL BUZZKILL.
Why don't you wear your wedding dress out to the bar while you're at it?
(Image from papiermache via PAPERFASHION via Pennyweight via les zigouis)
Yup. Plus, all that sizing. Blaaaah. Just enjoy the anticipation!
ReplyDeleteand you probably want to have SEX before your wedding, too ... DON'T YOU !
ReplyDeletePlus, if you start wearing them permanently, you miss out on the giddy taking-them-out-of-the-box-to-secretly-try-them-on phase. We would put ours on and giggle and then tuck them away again. Such fun.
ReplyDeleteOr you should just do whatever the hell you want because it makes you happy and waiting for the wedding doesn't actually mean anything anyway.
ReplyDeletere: scandinavians: I know that in parts of Western Europe (where I'm from) women wear their engagement rings as wedding bands, and wear them on one hand before the wedding, on the other after (which hand goes first traditionally depends on whether you're Catholic or Protestant). Never heard of people wearing wedding rings before the wedding though...
ReplyDeleteI'm all for wearing them now. Do what you want. The rings will always feel special to you. xo.
ReplyDeleteDo you realize how annoying you will be showing off your wedding ring before your wedding or after the wedding even though you've been wearing it for 4 months????
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, Scandinavians take their "engagement" more seriously, calling it a "betrothal," and that's why they wear the rings early.
ReplyDeleteThe anticipation is more fun. I used to wear mine around the house sometimes....when Ben wasn't home.
ReplyDeleteI'm on both sides here, cos my wedding ring ended up being a gold ring that husband bought me as a birthday present a couple months before we got engaged. (Engagement ring was vintage, couldn't afford to get wedding ring custom-made to fit, knew that this ring looked gorgeous with e-ring, thought "why not?")
ReplyDeleteAs soon as we decided that, he made me take it off, get it sized ASAP, then it went into the box with his wedding ring.
For the next few months, we also really enjoyed the take-them-outta-the-box-and-put-them-on-and-giggle phase. So technically I wore my wedding ring for several months before the wedding, then had several more months of waiting for it, and still got the excitement of it being The Wedding Ring, if you know what I mean.
I think it would be fine either way, but it could be impractical because your ring fingers are probably different sizes, and you really want your wedding ring to fit perfectly. Too tight and you will hate it (and get a weird indentation in your finger) and too loose and you will lose it.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what we did! We bought simple gold bands and wore them as engagement rings till the wedding day when we switched them to the other hand and they became our wedding rings. Its a tradition in Greece too! Though that has changed and now diamond engagement rings are in.
ReplyDeleteI went that route because I couldn't decide on an engagement ring and decided I didn't even want one. The I heard about the old tradition and thought it was so wonderful and simple.
I never tied any importance to wearing the ring for the first time at the ceremony. Putting it on when we got engaged was cool enough for me. :)
I don't know about the rings being "sacred," but buzzkill sounds like the right word. You have the rest of your life to wear them.
ReplyDelete@17 beats, hilarious
ReplyDeleteit will feel sort of 'meh' if you don't wait.
Yeah....lame sauce.
ReplyDeleteIt would kill the magic for me. I'm all for living together before marriage and having lots of pre-marital sex (er, tmi?), but I do wanna save something for after the wedding. It makes it special, ya know?
ReplyDeleteyou'll probably get a lot of casual acquaintances and co-workers assuming you've already gotten hitched and congratulating you and asking how the wedding was..
ReplyDeleteMy fiance and I are wearing claddaghs (yup) through our engagement and turning them at our wedding as our wedding bands. It's a change for us, with personal significance. Does there need to be more?
ReplyDeleteP.S. What magic is lost, exactly? The part where other people scrutize over your jewelry? It's your wedding ring, why the hell would you ever feel "meh" about it? Why would you pick out a band that you would feel "meh" about?
most right-handed folks have slightly larger sized fingers on their right hands (reverse is typically true for left-handed folks). if you ordered your rings for your left hand, but you wear them on your right, chances are they won't fit right. They might be slightly too tight & one of them might even need to be cut off to be able to get it off at all. They might be too loose, and you could risk loosing one (or both). if that's not total buzzkill, I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteyou don't want a wedding-ring fiasco before you even get a chance to wear the rings as a married couple. i totally get the wanting to wear them as soon as you have them, but don't you also want to have that giddy "finally!" feeling getting to put them on at the wedding?
@Rob Yes.
ReplyDeleteIn my country (ecuador) when you get engaged, you do an engagement party and you have the rings blessed. You wear the wedding bands on the oopposite hand and then before the wedding day, you sned them to get polished and put them on the other hand at the wedding ceremony. I dont think any magic is lost. I love wearing my ring, my fiance loves wearing it too. I love seeing him wearing it as well. Maybe its cause before he said he didnt want one but as soon as he proposed he totally wanted a ring. Do what you like. For me its magical wearing it now and it will be magical wearing it on my other hand after the wedding as well
ReplyDeleteoh just wait.
ReplyDeleteHello Ecuador and Greece! Like most German couples of their generation, my parents also wore their bands on their left hand during their engagement, - and switched to the right hand on their wedding day. And nope, didn't make the rings less special. Or the moment when they gave them to each other during the ceremony (still shaking hands as far as I heard :-) ). Or their marriage. Go with what feels right for you!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean - when my beautiful St. Kilda wedding band arrived in the mail I wanted to wear it RIGHT NOW. But ESB is right, it spoils the specialness of getting to wear it once you are actually married. I am patiently waiting 27 more days until I can wear mine :)
ReplyDeleteMy first inclination was let the poor couple do what they want! Why is everyone being such hardasses and making them wait?
ReplyDeleteThen I remembered they wrote in to an advice column and I changed my mind.
My advice:
1) Don't write into an advice column for validation of your choices (write in for an actual dilemma.)
2) Do what the fuck you want.
3) Know that some people will always judge.
Put them in a drawer and stop thinking about them. Don't you have some other aspect of your wedding that you can fixate on for the next 3 months?
ReplyDeletebf wore his at night to "get used to it" beforehand. it was cute. but wait.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'd tell you to wait, but we don't have the same idiosyncrasies here in Germany. *I noticed a fellow German said her parents wore theirs on their right hand - I have never heard of this being a tradition in my culture, but perhaps I have missed out because it would never occur to me.
ReplyDeleteSave the rings - sure it would be fun to wear them on your right hand, but part of the excitement after I got married was looking down at my ring because it was new and exciting. -that bitch from Germany
save 'em. you'll get to wear 'em forever soon enough!
ReplyDeleteMy now husband and I wanted to do something that was not asymmetric in lieu of an engagement ring just for the woman. (because what? like my dad would pay a dowry before giving me away? i don't think so.) We came up with buying our wedding rings early in the process, also getting chains for each of us, and wearing the other's ring on the chain around our neck until the day of.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the rings came in late and had to be changed around, mine was unusual and wouldn't hang, and then his mom gave us a family heirloom stone that she wanted us to use in an engagement ring for me. So we never made it happen. You could live my dream though!