One of the problems with traditions is that it is difficult to know when to break them. Breaking traditions at the right time can be a very admirable thing, because it shows guts and fortitude; unfortunately, it is always easy to go too far across the line, in which case you just end up looking silly to your peers. This is particularly true in the world of jewellery, and even more true when the tradition you are attempting to break pertains to wedding jewellery. There are few things more sacred than wedding traditions, and breaking them may incur not just the scorn of anyone assembled, but the wrath of your bride-to-be as well.
This, then, can pose quite a problem to the person who is not satisfied with the standard exchange of rings during the wedding process. For example, many modern young people have grown dissatisfied with the standard gold rings that have always been a part of the wedding tradition. In particular, mens gold wedding rings are seen as quite plain and dull. Young people getting married these days obviously intend on exchanging rings but many long for something a bit more adventurous – after all, they want their wedding to be slightly different from those of everyone else, and whynot?
When these young people voice these concerns to their jeweler, the conservative old man looks at them askance. What, he says, is wrong with a gold wedding ring? If your parents did it, and your grandparents did it, and their parents before them did it, then why can you not do it as well?
Unfortunately, this line of questioning almost never works well with the youth. The youth of today want to see themselves as different from everyone else, not as upholding the same standards; as a result, we must find them new options.
One very stylish form of differentiation in wedding jewellery can be found in white gold. White gold wedding rings will probably become very popular with the youth, because the white gleam that they offer is far more seductive and interesting than the staidness of yellow gold.
What’s more, the white gold wedding ring is entirely acceptable to all generations – the youth like it because it is slightly flashier and more attention-grabbing than the staidness of yellow gold; and people more concerned with tradition still respect it because at the end of the day, gold is still gold. A slight modification to the composition of the alloy doesn’t change much, really.
A men’s wedding ring will offer some simple choices, depending on your style the band can be either thick or thin, come in yellow or white gold, silver or platinum. Silver is rarely used as it’s thought to be somewhat on the cheap side and will tarnish as most silver jewellery does. Platinum is your most expensive option, it has a much heavier fell that gold or silver, it is quite durable but will scratch, these scratches are easily buffed by a professional jeweller. Gold has varying degrees of expense depending on the karat you choose. White gold, then, is probably one of the more acceptable options to people that want to differentiate themselves from the old ways of doing things. There are other options as well, of course – if one wants to get truly exotic, there are really no shortage of options like platinum, rhodium or even palladium. However, the prices of those kinds of rings are far more prohibitively expensive, not only because the metals are more expensive but also because it is harder to come by jewellers that will make wedding or engagement rings from them.
Other ways of differentiating wedding rings can be through changing the stone, not just the metal. This is a bit of a harder sell, however, because diamonds have always been de rigueur when it comes to mens wedding bands. Although the popularity of diamonds has decreased slightly in the past few years (particularly due to the economic recession and the whole “blood diamond” publicity fiasco), diamonds remain the most popular choice. Gold rings, then, are probably an inescapable fact of life for the young couple in love.