Source: Carina Skrobecki

While Erik was home on military leave this summer, we went shopping and bought his wedding band, a simple matte tungsten band. Seeing a ring on his finger somehow made things start to feel really real, can't wait for it to be there permanently! Now that we have his, I spent some time thinking about what I really want.

My ring, in the image above, is a custom designed band with small floral accents around a rose cut center stone, creating the look of a wide band. I absolutely love it on its own, and because it was custom made for us, it doesn't come as a set with a wedding band. Because I love it so much on its own, I don't really want something that nestles in perfectly to make it even wider, I feel like it would really change the whole look of the ring.

For awhile I thought I didn't want another band at all. My mom never had a separate engagement ring and band, and I didn't want something that would make me like my ring less. But, we do travel quite a bit internationally, and I wanted something I could wear in case I was nervous travelling with an obvious diamond on my finger. We also do a lot of gardening and house renovation, so again wanted something to wear in lieu of my engagement ring for weekends spent mostly at home depot. And then there's the symbolic aspect of having a band to bless on the day of our wedding. The engagement ring has so much symbolism, but I wanted another little something to have to remind me of the actual wedding day, even if I don't wear it 100% of the time.

So I started researching simple bands with some organic texture that brought the feeling of my engagement ring to them. I looked for very thin bands in hope of finding something that might work with the engagement ring for the rare day I might want to wear both. For this reason I was also looking for palladium or white gold options to match my diamond ring. Here are the favorites that I found:

Source: [one] [two] [three] [four] [five]

I really like all of these for different reasons, but one night on pinterest I stumbled across a band that has the same feeling to me as my engagement ring in a much simpler form. They won't necessarily go together, but I will feel equally beautiful wearing either depending on the day. They're both architectural yet organic:

Source: Anna Sheffield

One thing I especially like about this choice is that there is a matching band with diamonds that we can get down the road as an anniversary band. It would be a great wedding band option if you wanted something a little blingier. I've already started dropping hints for our 5 year anniversary.