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The tradition of exchanging wedding bands symbolizes a commitment, love, and unity between two people. And there are so many options for finding the perfect rings to symbolize this bond.

Many couples choose their bands together, to find a pair of rings that feel symbolic of each individual, and the connection between them.

There is also a unique appeal of custom made wedding rings, and specialty techniques like mokume gane allow for an added level of personalization.

The Growing Trend of Couples Choosing Wedding Bands Together

In the past, couples have separately chosen each other’s rings, but in recent years, the trend of couples selecting their wedding bands together has gained popularity. This collaborative approach adds an extra personal touch to the rings.

Selecting wedding bands as a couple can be a wonderful unifying experience. It allows partners to discuss preferences, styles, and meanings behind different designs. 

When couples choose their rings together, they have the opportunity to choose what design elements would best symbolize their relationship and the marriage that they are building.

By selecting wedding bands together, couples can also ensure that their rings complement each other aesthetically. This is perfect for a pair who have distinct personal styles and tastes, but would still like their wedding bands to feel like a set.

Exploring Custom Wedding Bands

Custom wedding bands offer couples the flexibility to create rings that are as unique as their relationship. The journey begins with a design consultation, where couples share their vision with a goldsmith. This initial discussion helps both the designer and couple understand the direction to take the designs and what will be feasible for their budget, timeline, and personal preferences, in bringing their vision to life.

Choosing the right materials is an essential step in creating custom wedding bands. This is where mokume gane in particular is a great choice, both in quality of craft and symbolism of a strong bond.

Mokume Gane Wedding Ring Sets: A Unique Choice

Mokume gane, with its roots in traditional Japanese metal working, is a perfect style for wedding bands. This technique involves layering different metals and fusing them together, then manipulating the metals through carving and forging to create beautiful patterns. Mokume gane wedding ring sets are particularly appealing for couples seeking distinctive and artistic designs.

The creation of mokume gane rings involves fusing layers of precious metals like golds, palladium, silverand platinum. This stack of metals, called a billet, can then be twisted, folded, carved, all by hand. This painstaking process results in rings that are as unique 

The artistry behind mokume gane rings goes beyond aesthetics. The technique represents the blending of different elements—metals in this case—to form a harmonious whole. This perfectly reflects the concept of a union like a marriage, a strong bond forged to bring two people together and create something new. 

Couples can further personalize mokume gane wedding ring sets by selecting the metal combinations and patterns that resonate with their relationship. This customization allows them to create rings that are not only visually stunning but also deeply meaningful. Arn’s mokume gane work especially offers a wide variety of options, as each of his patterns has a distinct look and are inspired by different elements of nature, so the individual can choose a pattern that most reflects their personality and style. Choosing different patterns but the same metal palette is one example of a way to create a cohesive set that doesn’t feel too matching, but clearly complements each other.

Sometimes customers come to us with beautifully complex ideas, designs based on special locations they have been to, or elements that have been calling to them. We love the art form of mokume and its vast possibilities in both palette and pattern.  Arn especially loves to make exquisitely custom and exploratory work that would be impossible to recreate, making the ring even fully of an object d’ art. When the visions our clients have in mind for their rings fall outside of our stocked palette and pattern options, we create custom billets.  This is an opportunity to personalize the design even further to their individual tastes. 

The Billet

What’s a billet? A billet is the material that we create to make the rings from. It is layered precious metals bonded by a meticulous process of heat and pressure. Some makers of mokume purchase mokume billets from an outside source, but we make them from scratch, which allows for the greatest range of custom options. The sky's the limit and our craft inhabits the highest realm of making.

Why Custom?

Mokume by nature is inherently wild, we find this is key to the beauty of this art form, no two rings are ever going to be exactly alike, by both the nature of handmade work and of mokume gane itself. 

With this in mind, variations in the appearance of our designs are to be expected, especially with the color palettes. So many elements affect this, of course the patterns, but also the size and width of the ring. For clients with a strong preference regarding the look of the colors (which metal color or type is most dominant in the rings, the thicknesses of the various layers), a custom billet can be a great option.

Custom billets do come with added cost  and sometimes wait time, and we wanted to take you through the process to show the diligent and detailed work that goes into them. Each custom billet is assembled from scratch and created specifically to order.

The Process

We thought we might explain the process of making the custom billet so that our clients can see what goes into this endeavor. 

1. Determining and ordering the metals - this begins during the design consultation process, choosing the metals and proportions, and then special ordering the necessary material.

2. Cutting the metal sheets to size - the metals arrive in thin sheets, and are cut down to the correct measurements to be made into a billet.

3. Cleaning the sheets - each piece of metal is carefully cleaned (this is essential for bonding the metals). 

4. Pressing the billet - the sheets are stacked and pressed with the hydraulic press to create an initial bond.

5. Binding the billet - the billet is held together with binding wire to keep everything in place while firing.

6. Firing the billet - the billet is either torched or fired in the kiln.

7. Hot pressing the billet - straight from firing, still hot, the billet is pressed again in the hydraulic press.

8. Trimming the billet - the very edges of the billet are trimmed off to make everything perfectly square again.

9. Rolling and forging the billet to stock dimensions - the billet is gradually worked and shaped down to ring stock (it starts to resemble a long stick rather than a brick) so it’s at the correct dimensions to be made into a ring!

Making custom mokume pieces is always a labor intensive and demanding process, but we truly love the work and the opportunity to share this amazing craft with others.