How do you wear an engagement ring with a wedding band after marriage?

Most of the time, however they land. If the rings fit well together, wear them in whatever order feels natural. If they don't, you've got a few options, and I'll walk through them.

The tradition-the one I learned from my grandmother's generation-is wedding band first, then engagement ring. Closest to the heart. It's a nice idea, and it does keep the engagement ring from sliding off if the band is slightly wider. But tradition crumbles the moment the rings don't stack flush. A halo setting or a low cathedral basket will leave a gap that catches on every sweater. So practicality wins.

Last spring, Daniel came in with a platinum 2.2mm knife-edge engagement ring and his grandmother's thin 18k yellow gold band, about 1.8mm. He wanted them to sit side by side without a millimeter of space, and he absolutely did not want them soldered. He didn't want to commit to wearing them together forever. The client, a structural engineer, spent fifteen minutes showing me photos on his phone of the exact 0.4mm gap he'd measured with a feeler gauge at his kitchen table, which I both respected and found tedious in equal measure. The basket sat low on the engagement ring, so the band bumped against the stone's culet. We made a custom curved spacer ring in platinum, 1.3mm wide, polished to disappear. $180. Problem solved, no solder, no gap.

If you're okay with the rings moving independently (which is fine, by the way), just stack them whichever way keeps the engagement ring from constantly spinning. Most client fingers taper, so the larger engagement ring size often sits better on top, trapping the band below. But if your band is wider, reverse it. Don't overthink it.

Some people only wear the wedding band after a few years, and the engagement ring lives in a drawer. That's not a failure of the ring; it's just a different season of life. If you find yourself always taking off the engagement ring to wash dishes or type, or if the prongs keep catching on the inside of your gardening glove and you cringe every time you snag it on the car door handle, then maybe it's time to admit the ring isn't living your life with you and redesign it into a simpler band that does. I've remade a dozen inherited rings into stacks that actually get worn.

I wear mine whichever way they end up after I've been at the bench for an hour. The order doesn't make the marriage.