Man's engagement ring--which hand?
I am a recently engaged man... My fiancee and I decided that it would
be good and appropriate if we both got engagement rings. The big
question is: which hand do I wear it on? I've got an engagement band
(titanium, with a Celtic knot engraving) that'll make it look like I'm
already married if I wear it on the left ring finger, and if I wear it
on the right... Doesn't that usually symbolize widower status? Has
anyone heard of any customs/traditions regarding the man's engagement
ring?
My husband wore his on his left ring finger. (He called it his "training ring"
;-) because he really did need to just get used to wearing one all the time.)
It was a simple band -- silver rather than gold, but I imagine that someone who
didn't know might assume he was married, but so what?
The only man I ever knew who wore a wedding ring on his right ring finger was
German. Apparently in Germany the custom is for both men and women to wear
their ring on the left during their engagement and move it to the right at the
wedding. Who knew?
Anyway, I've never heard of a right-hand ring meaning the wearer is a widower.
Even if it does, so what? Those who know you will know what it means to you,
and it doesn't matter what those who don't know you think.
Wear it wherever you're most comfortable with it. One consideration is, what
do you plan to do with it after you have a wedding ring? If you don't plan to
get a second ring, perhaps wearing it on a different finger now and moving it
to the "wedding ring finger" after you're married will be symbolically
important to you. If you will get a second ring designed to fit together with
the engagement ring, it's probably best to go ahead and wear the engagement
ring on your left now. If you'll get a different wedding ring and thereafter
either won't wear the engagement ring regularly or won't wear it on the same
finger, you could go either way -- switching it off the left hand during the
wedding ceremony might be nice, but wearing it on the right to start means you
won't have to readjust to the way it fits and feels later.