Brides are starting small and building toward a stylish stack.

by Tara Behan

Although you still may be completely mesmerized from the sparkle of your engagement ring, now is the time to start considering what style of wedding band will best complement it.

Jeweler Brian Smaul, owner of Brian M. Smaul Ltd. Jewelry in Strafford, Pa., has experienced most of his clients starting out with a single, thin pave eternity band in platinum. Yes, you did read that correctly, “starting out.” It seems that the trend is stacking multiple wedding bands (usually up to five) together. “Women will get additional bands for different special occasions in their life like a big anniversary, a push present, or a birthday gift,” says Smaul.

The stacks of bands can include any combination of styles from all diamonds to solid bands of colored gemstones. Along with emeralds and yellow diamonds, Smaul has created bands of blue or pink sapphires to celebrate the birth of a child. “Now that gold is becoming popular again some clients will get some thin gold twisted bands to accent on either side of their platinum bands,” says Smaul. “It can change the whole look of the ring.”

After a long hiatus, yellow gold is back in good standing as a popular metal of choice for engagement rings and wedding bands. According to Smaul, in the 1970s all jewelry seemed to go to yellow gold. “Before that time all jewelry was platinum,” he recalls. “In the ’70s everyone wanted to reset their rings into yellow gold.” Two decades later, styles slowly turned to a two-tone preference. “So the shank would be yellow gold and the diamonds would be set in white (gold or platinum),” says Smaul. By the end of the 1990s, white gold and platinum regained their favor. “Europe started doing yellow gold about eight years ago and now in the states everything is yellow,” he says. “What was once old is now new again.”

Smaul also sees a lot of his customers opting to switch their engagement ring to their right hand once they’re married and use their left hand for their wedding band or bands. “That way you can stack as many rings as you want and you don’t have to worry about getting something that matches your engagement ring,” says Smaul.

No matter what their style, when deciding on a wedding band or an engagement ring, Smaul always advises his clients to make sure that they love what they’re choosing. “It’s important that when she looks down at her ring she smiles,” he says. We didn’t forget about the men who Smaul says prefer to keep things very simple when it comes to wedding bands. “Most men choose a basic dome band in titanium or palladium,” he says. “Nothing fancy.”