How do you wear your engagement ring and wedding ring together?

The wedding ring goes on first, so it sits below the engagement ring and closer to the hand. The reasoning is partly symbolic, the wedding ring is meant to rest closest to the heart, and partly practical. At the ceremony the wedding ring is slid onto the base of the bare ring finger, which means the engagement ring has to be off that finger at the time. Most brides move the engagement ring to the right hand before the ceremony, then return it to the left finger afterwards so it sits on top of the new wedding ring. From that day on the usual order is wedding ring at the base, engagement ring above it. Some people prefer the reverse, engagement ring at the base, simply because they like how it looks, and nothing breaks if you do. The traditional order is a guide, not a rule.

There are three common ways to wear the pair. Worn as a loose stack, the two rings stay separate, so each can be worn on its own and resized independently; the trade-off is that they spin against each other and can rub over time. Soldered or fused together, the rings are joined into a single piece by a jeweller, which means they never twist out of order, never gap and behave like one ring; the trade-off is that the join is permanent, the pair must be resized together, and neither can be worn alone afterwards. Kept separate, some people wear the engagement ring only for occasions, or move it to the right hand for everyday wear so the wedding ring sits alone on the left. None of these is more correct than the others. Soldering suits people who never take the rings apart; a loose stack suits people who want the flexibility.

A plain straight wedding band often will not sit flush against an engagement ring, because the engagement ring setting, especially a low-set stone, a halo or a wide head, gets in the way and leaves a visible gap between the two bands. The fix is a contoured wedding band, also called a curved, shadow or wrap band, cut with a notch or curve so it nests around the engagement ring setting. The cleanest result comes from designing the wedding band to the engagement ring rather than buying one off the shelf, so the curve matches the exact profile of the head. Matching the metal and roughly the band width also helps the pair read as a set. If the engagement ring is already owned, a jeweller can take its measurements, or work from the ring itself, and shape the band to fit.