Shadow Bands Choices for an Engagement Puzzle Ring with a Tight Weave
For a long time, I’ve been encouraging clients to go with an open weave for a puzzle ring destined to be paired with a shadow wedding band. The shapeliness of the sides of an open weave puzzle ring result in a set that seems to “hang together” better on the finger. But a conversation yesterday with a client who initially* wanted a four-band, tightly woven, puzzle ring with a shadow band resulted in an aha! moment for me. Okay, so maybe I’m a little slow, but the answer has been on my site for a quite a while now.
We can create a modified shadow band that fits beautifully with a tightly woven puzzle ring. We’ve done it before, as you will see below. The engagement puzzle ring is a three piece puzzle in these photographs, but the shadow band will work equally well with a four band, tightly woven puzzle ring. And while the shadow band we show here is a plain tapered band (with hand-engraving on the inside), there is no limit to the kinds of designs we can offer with a flat edge mating with the puzzle ring: claddagh, Celtic knots, lettered, diamond, colored gemstones. Bring us your ideas for something truly custom.
Trinity knot, three-band puzzle ring with diamond and custom fit wedding band. Notice that this shadow band is not a “perfect reflection” of the puzzle ring at the front. With three bands, there is only one little “nook” in the puzzle ring with which we could mate the puzzle ring. It doesn’t give much shape for the two to hang together on the finger, so we skip the nooks and crannies of the puzzle ring for a wedding band to go with a tightly woven puzzle ring. However, the wedding band is uniquely designed for your puzzle ring, so that the two fit together beautifully. The secrets are in the sides and back of the shadow band.
Here you can see that the wedding band is slightly tapered to the back. More importantly, it is carefully fitted to the shape of the puzzle ring on the sides, so there are no gaps between the two rings.
Conversely, when we place a wedding band with a uniform width with a puzzle ring, there are gaps on the sides between the two rings. Unfortunately, I can’t show an image of this, because when we did more of this type of bridal set, we didn’t take side photos, because our then-website didn’t enable us to show multiple images per product. And yes, we still do provide engagement puzzle rings with posy rings and Irish Celtic rings, and they fit best, i.e. the gaps are minimized, with puzzle rings with tight or standard weaves.
The kind of wedding band shown here – that is, a wedding band with a flat mating surface at the front of the ring tapering to a slighter width at the back – can accommodate many different designs. So please talk to Mandira, that’s me! I’ll collaborate with you so you have the perfect wedding set for you and your beloved. And . . . naturally, we can make a gent’s wedding band to complement or match hers. Some men get a puzzle ring in a heavier weight without a stone or some get one that is closer to the shadow band in design, as shown below.
Tapered wedding band in 14K rose gold with hand-engraving on the inside
*So what did my client who “initially” wanted a four band, tightly woven engagement puzzle ring with a shadow band decide upon? He wants the very three band puzzle ring shown on this page with the matching tapered shadow band into which we will set alternating round diamonds and aquamarines.
