We all know that wedding rings can come in any imagined shape or size. Color on the other hand is usually limited to the color of the base metal or metals the wedding ring is made from. Although there is no accounting for taste, and a gold wedding ring will always be golden in color, a classic golden wedding band is anything but your only option when choosing the wedding ring that is right for you. There are several factors to take into account when deciding upon the right metal for your wedding ring, including issues such as price, personal aesthetic appeal, durability and hypoallergenic qualities.

Gold wedding rings are by far not only the most common, but the biggest sellers in today’s market as well. Yellow gold, rose gold, white gold and pure gold itself are all variants of the gold wedding band theme. While pure gold is just that, pure gold, the other golds previously listed are all metal alloys of pure gold. Yellow and rose gold are often alloyed with silver, copper, or some other base element, whilst white gold is most commonly alloyed with platinum. Gold wedding rings, be they pure or made from alloys, are the standard images that come to mind for most people when they think about wedding rings. For the vast majority of consumers, the fact that gold is the staple metal used in wedding ring construction (coupled with the fact that white gold is more often than not hypoallergenic in nature), makes gold-based wedding rings the most popular of choices.

But gold is not the only metal which can be used to create wedding rings. Platinum, an element used to create hypoallergenic white gold, is in its pure form a kind of upgrade from the standard gold wedding band. Platinum is a bit harder than gold, and as such, more resistant to scratching, denting and other common forms of wear and tear. For those individuals who will find themselves repeatedly removing and replacing their wedding ring from their finger, platinum is a great alternative to the standard gold band. Although more costly to purchase initially, the long-term cost benefits when applied to things such as ring maintenance, resizing or other work which may need to be done to ensure the ring’s long-lasting value certainly seem to make the initial output of money a worthy investment. For the most part platinum is considered to be a hypoallergenic metal, though rare cases of allergic reactions can occur.

Two other alternative metals which are growing in popularity these days are tungsten and titanium. These two metals of an ounce per ounce basis are far less expensive than their precious metal counterparts such as gold or platinum. This fact, coupled with the metals extreme durability, are perhaps the two most common reasons why such alternative metal wedding rings a re growing in popularity. Though both of these metals (tungsten in particular) are notoriously difficult for jewelers to work with considering their extreme densities and harnesses,a final products they create are quite beautiful nonetheless. These two metals are particularly popular amongst male, working-class consumers due to their abilities to keep in step with the ways of the modern working world. Consumers don’t have to think about taking the rings on an off each and every time they find themselves performing a duty that could potentially damage a ring made from more conventional metals. Most importantly for some people there have been no known reported allergic reactions to tungsten or titanium.