OM's advice on OH ring please...

OH has same as me, 18ct white gold. There was a cheaper option for £300 less, can't remember the metal, and he was going to get that to save money. I said whats the point, its for your whole life, you might as well get something that is better quality / won't discolour etc. But both of our rings were still in our ring budget so we didn't need to go for the cheaper option.

Because my ER is platinum, we're trying to find affordable platinum WRs for us both.

Have you visited a jeweller yet?

How would you feel if it was the other way round?

I'm not trying to skimp and save money at all, it he wants white gold then white gold he shall have. It's simply that a few friends have said that white gold scratches easily and isn't always the best option for a man so I wanted some advice.

I've not heard that before?

I would think your at more risk getting a lower level metal personally?

Thats why they are usually more expensive because they are better quality? So Palladium (I think?) is a tier above White Gold because its better metal...?

Thats my understanding of it all anyway.

White gold does scratch easily and needs redipping every year. Which is fine but may annoy a boy!

I have a platinum engagement ring and me and H both have palladium wedding rings (you can wear palladium and platinum together but you can't really wear either with white gold).

H's palladium ring cost about £400 and it's pretty hard wearing.

You could also get tungsten or titanium for less than £100 each which are both very hard wearing.

We both have palladium (my ER is palladium too). We went for it because we wanted the strength and hardness of platinum but couldnt afford it! White gold is a bit soft and would probably scratch easily, compared to palladium or platinum. We got our two plain bands, one 2.5mm and one 7mm for About £450 I think.

If he wants white gold, let him have it. I wanted OH to have platinum like mine, although it wouldn't have ever been the same style ring. He tried a few, but thought platinum was too heavy and too shiny for him. He's a chartered engineer and was desperate for a titanium ring for that industrial look. I don't actually like his ring, and feel bad that it cost less than 1/10 of mine, but he loves it, and for a man who never wanted to wear any jewellery, that's what matters.

Out of interest, why do you want him to have a metal that won't scratch, but not for you to have a durable ring? And if he doesn't want to scrimp on costs getting something more durable, suggest he gets platinum, which is tougher than gold.

Black zirconium. Its hard wearing (OH is a landscape gardener) and OH wanted something a bit different and the black ring really suits him. https://geti.cc/

It doesn't match mine at all. Mine is white gold with diamonds. I really don't see why they have to match. Also white gold is softer and scratches. Mine is already scratched and I do no manual labour so his would be ruined by now.

As Kharv said - white gold needs redipping. I have platinum and we looked at platinum for the OH but he liked the pallidium one better so thats what he's got

White gold, but I regret it as he works a lot with his hands so it is constantly getting scratched. He didn't want to spend more money to get a harder wearing metal though. After only 3 months it looked horrible, so we sent it back to Smooch for a free cleaning/dipping and it looks great now.

Platinum and it was blinking expensive! We did figure, however, that this would be the one thing from our wedding that we'd wear every single day for the rest of our lives, so we might as well get something that will last. My dad had a white gold ring in 1980 and had to get it replaced a few years ago as it tarnished.

White gold does discolour and will turn back to yellow gold if not redipped.

My H is a carpenter and he got a palladium wedding ring, think it was about £400, the only thing I'd say about titanium (which is cheap as chips) is we were told if H ever had an accident and his finger swells, your finger will come off before the ring! Bascially it has to be heated to a really high temperature, you can't cut it. So we decided with his job that it wasn't worth the risk. Not sure if that's true or not but sounded about right to me.

Remember you also don't have to have matching rings (unless you want to of course!)

Not true re titanium Holey. A&E departments have ring cutters that can deal with titanium. They can't deal with tungsten though, so any tungsten rings should be generously sized and removed immediately if there's a problem.

Sorry BBB maybe I meant tungsten then!

My aunt whos making ours (well made now! Yay!) had this discussion with OH. It mainly depends on what he does. If say he's a manual worker, a higher carat gold would break/get damaged easier that lower as gold is a very very soft metal, so thr more actual gold the softer the ring is. However says hes an office worker with soft hands, or even if hes simply happy not to wear his ring to work if he is manual than its fine to go higher.

For OH, with his job it kinda gave him either option in that he's not a builder, but he actually went cheaper for 9 carat gold on the basis he'd never see the difference so why pay more!

Yes, there use to be the problem with titanium, but with the amount of titanium rings now, things have changed. Titanium is still really hard to resize, and OH was told that if he needed his resized they could probably do it once, but not more.

OH was originally going to have titanium to save a bit of money, but when we looked at them, we both didn't like it.

He works in the City, so we didn't need to worry about manual labour scratching it, but we managed to get Palladium for a decent price.

The jewellers he got my ER from were going to charge £500 for my platinum band and his palladium band, but we ended up getting them for £380 from Alba Rose.

OH works as a plumber, so not majorly going to be knocked about but is likley to scratch over the years. I asked the same question in Earnest Jones where I bought my ring and they suggested Colbat (spelling?) and they do a lovely selection but I haven't seen this in any other jewllers. A fried suggested titanium andher OH is also a plumber as its strong.

I don't want him to get a white gold ring for the sake of it and in a few years time we have to buy another.

My sister's OH has a white gold wedding ring and is a doctor, so takes it off all the time. They got married in April 2011 and last time I saw them and we actually discussed that his ring needed re-dipping etc - and that was when I noticed/remembered it was meant to be white gold!! It looked yellow gold! That is how much it needed re-dipping!

My OH has got a yellow gold, 10ct ring (as it was bought in USA - so they don't do 9ct there!!) and we chose it as the lower the carat the harder wearing it is and as he is a electrician and works outside a lot he needs a harder one!

If he's a plumber I really wouldn't recommend white gold.

Does your OH want to wear a ring?

Mine doesnt and has even said lets not bother getting one for him at all. He works as a farmer/ carpenter plus a few other things he seems to be able to do. Very clever man thats why I love him.

Anyway I have made him settle on a £50 white gold band which will probably just sit in my jewellery box for all entirety.

I would be happy for my OH not to have one too but I think he's set on having one.

We were having the same issue, my OH is a gas engineer so needs a durable ring, so gold or white gold was out. He didn't really want to get an expensive ring that could still get damaged. We looked at a lot of other metals and today he decided on a really nice cobalt ring from Ernest jones. He's very pleased with it, it'll be hard wearing, reasonable price and looks really nice. Winner!