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Engagement ring etiquette – How do you wear your rings?

As with many things at a wedding, there are details people don’t think about until a decision is suddenly due. In this case, it’s engagement ring etiquette. When should you take it off? Which hand should you wear it on for the ceremony? Do you switch hands once you’re married? Whether your ring features a lab created or natural diamond, there are a few simple etiquette guidelines worth knowing.

There are long-standing traditions about where to place your engagement ring and wedding band before the wedding, on the day itself, and after you’ve said “I do.” As a wedding photographer I’m asked about this all the time, so here’s a clear, modern guide you can follow—or tweak to fit your style.

A couples hands lovingly intertwined, showcasing her sparkling engagement ring against a romantic beach sunset.

Engagement ring etiquette

During your wedding ceremony

On your wedding day, tradition says to wear your engagement ring on the third finger of your right hand (your right-hand ring finger). This keeps your left-hand ring finger free so your partner can place your wedding band there during the vows. By the end of the ceremony, you’ll usually have a ring on each hand—your engagement ring on the right and your brand-new wedding band on the left. Many people then slide the engagement ring back so both rings sit neatly together on the left hand.

The practice of using the left-hand ring finger is often attributed to ancient beliefs about a vein that ran from that finger straight to the heart—a romantic idea that helped cement the symbolism of the wedding band. If you like adding meaning to your day, you might enjoy a special moment like a ring-warming before the vows—here are some ring warming ceremony ideas—so your bands carry blessings the second they’re exchanged. At the end of your ceremony you should have a ring on both hands, ready to stack.

Womans hand adorned with engagement ring resting on mans shoulder, symbolizing their joyful bond.

After your wedding ceremony

Once you’re married, the classic order is simple: wear both rings on the left-hand ring finger, with the wedding band closest to your heart (at the base of the finger) and the engagement ring stacked above it. This arrangement is comfortable, secure and instantly signals your status at a glance.

If you prefer a particular style or setting—say a low-profile band for everyday wear—you can still mix things up. Many couples choose practical options for daily life and keep heirloom or statement pieces for special occasions. If you’re currently shopping, browsing engagement ring designs can help you imagine how the two rings will stack.

An elegant engagement ring nestled between beige block-heeled sandals on a wooden surface.

You could also ignore tradition

Etiquette is a guide, not a rule book. Plenty of people keep wearing their engagement ring on the right hand permanently, skip it day-to-day for comfort, or fuse the engagement ring and wedding band into one piece by soldering. Do what feels authentic and practical for you.

Trends change, too. For instance, the “traditional” white wedding gown only became popular in the 1800s—before that, the common hue was actually blue. So if you prefer a different stacking order, a minimalist single band, or an evolving stack with anniversary rings, you’re in great company.

A diamond ring nestled in a blooming pink rose, surrounded by a lush bouquet of vibrant flowers.

Quick tips to make it easy

  • Before the ceremony: Move your engagement ring to your right-hand ring finger.
  • During the ceremony: Wedding band goes on the left-hand ring finger.
  • After the ceremony: Stack both on the left, band first, engagement ring above.
  • Personal preference wins: Comfort and meaning matter more than strict rules.

Final thoughts

Following engagement ring etiquette can add a touch of tradition to your day, but your love story is yours to style. Whether you keep it classic, modernise the stack, or design something entirely unique, the best choice is the one you’ll enjoy wearing every day.

 

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Why we give guests a gift for attending a wedding

Wedding favour in small plastic box

Why we give guests a gift for attending a wedding

Ever wonder why we give guests a gift for attending a wedding? Seems a bit odd doesn’t it? I mean you’ve just forked out a small fortune to host this spectacular wedding reception to celebrate your marriage, why should you spend any more on gifts? Surely the $100 per head 3 course dinner you’ve provided for them is enough, right? Well in my research of wedding traditions, the answer lies in what people believed to help with the vitality of the party.

bomboniere ideas

Ever wonder why we give guests a gift for attending a wedding?

The origin of the tradition dates back to the 1600s when French aristocrats used to give out jeweled boxes full of sugar coated almonds as a means to increase vitality in the party. A gift of a bonbonnière was a symbol of care extended to all guests. Sugared almonds carried additional significance at weddings, as the bitterness of the almonds and the sweetness of the sugar was thought to symbolise the bitter-sweetness of marriage. The practice spread across Europe where the Italians, Greeks and Spanish also thought the sugar on almonds gave health giving properties. As the price of sugar fell, more and more people were able to copy society’s elite much in the same way white wedding gowns became the norm in the 1800s. The shape and colour of the almonds also mimicked eggs, a symbol of fertility.

While the opulent, jeweled boxes have fallen to the wayside in favour of cheaper options, such as paper bags in modern times; those sugar coated almonds remain. Love them or hate them, they are a staple at weddings and you’ll find them in almost every wedding. They are cheap, small and easy to give out, but these days people often opt for more substantial gifts to compliment them. From photo frames to lego minifigs right through to bottles of liquor and pieces of jewellery, modern bomboniere can be very diverse.

Lego
bomboniere ideas

The reason why we give guests a gift for attending a wedding all stems from the tradition of the French of getting a sugar high from eating too much sugar. Who knew? 🙂

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How to include guests who can’t attend your wedding

Spinning Photo Memory Charm with Rhinestones

How to include guests who can’t attend your wedding

More often than not, when organising your guest list for your wedding, you’ll find out that some guests you have a deep connection with cannot make it due to any number of reasons. These guests are people who perhaps are too old and frail to venture out to your wedding venue, or perhaps they are living overseas. I thought I might make a bit of a list of ideas I’ve seen when covering weddings as a wedding photographer of how to include guests who can’t attend your wedding.

Ideas for how to include guests who can’t attend your wedding

Mobile phone

Live stream your ceremony

Providing of course that your wedding venue has good mobile phone coverage, you could opt to live stream your wedding ceremony via your mobile device. Modern smartphones with cameras all have this ability whereby you can set up a face to face call with the guest that could not make it and instead of facing the camera towards yourself, simply turn it around so that it’s facing the altar. In this way your guest can participate in the wedding ceremony in real time.

If you’re a little more tech minded one could also set up a live streaming event with a service such as livestream, where you’re able to hook up a camera with a PC with an internet connection. Using this kind of service more than just one guest could watch the stream at once.

Since writing this article in 2016, I have started offering not only live streaming services, but also Virtual reality recording services so let me know if you’d like to make use of what I offer! 🙂

Record a video message to play at your reception

One wedding that I fondly remember was the wedding of Michaela & Paddy at the SC Pannell Winery where the reception featured a video of well wishes from guests all around the world who could not make it. The reactions from Michaela seeing the faces of loved ones talking to her via video was a beautiful addition to the day.

Videographer

Make use of a Videographer

As a wedding photographer, I’m often working alongside a videographer, and I will be soon expanding into this area as a new service. The best use of a wedding videographer is of course having a full video documenting your wedding day in ways that still photography cannot. A great idea for how to include guests who cannot attend your wedding is to hold a viewing party at some point after your wedding where you can take your video to the guests who couldn’t make it. You can also opt to send a copy of your video to guests abroad, or even use the internet.

Guests pictures

Represent guests not present with their photo

Having guests who could not make it represented by framed photos is a wonderful idea to remember those who could not make it for one reason or another. This idea is often used for those guests who would have loved to attend but who had passed on before the wedding date.

Many brides often have a family member that is so important that they carry a photo charm of them attached to their bridal bouquet – whch is a lovely gesture for guests who have touched the heart of the bride.

Grandpa ion bouquet

These are just some of the ideas I’ve picked up throughout the dozens of weddings I’ve covered. If you have another idea to perhaps add to this list I’d love to hear about it!

 

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List of things to do after your wedding

After the stress of planning your wedding, and your wedding day is a fond memory, there is a list of things to do after your wedding that not many people remember. Some of the things on the list can be as important as some of the things you planned for the wedding when you consider the fact that the entire reason why you spent so much energy planning your perfect day was not only for you, but also for your friends and family. It’s best to get these out of the way sooner rather than later too, as many of them require the memory of the day to remain fresh in your mind. So don’t forget about this list of things to do after your wedding, as in some cases you might set yourself up for disaster!

Kuitpo Forest wedding

List of things to do after your wedding

Send out your thankyou cards

One sure-fire way to have guests complaining about your wedding day is to not show gratitude for them making the effort for being there. They’d also probably left you a generous gift, in addition to possibly giving you a gift for your engagement and spending a small fortune to get to your wedding day – if they live some distance away. A small token in the form of a thankyou card goes a long way to make everyone feel loved. Often you can ask your wedding photographer to quickly edit up an image or two to use for this occasion. Particularly if you plan the shot and bring along a sign, or banner that says ‘thank you’ or something similar.

Change your name

For those brides out there that are planning on changing their name as per tradition, I hope you’re aware that it doesnt automatically change? You need to go through a bit of a process to have your name changed, and your marriage certificate is only the start of the process. You will need to visit your bank, insurance brokers, immigration office, etc in order to actually change it!

Choose your photos

Once your wedding photographer has completed editing your photos, nows the time to select those precious few to create a timeless piece of art from. As a photographer, there is nothing better than seeing beautiful imagery framed professionally and printed on beautiful paper stock or canvass. This would also be the best time to select a larger number for your wedding album, the book that will be within arms reach for years to come in order for you to reach over and reminisce about your big day. It’s no use keeping your images on the USB, or your computer’s hard drive where no one will appreciate them, please PLEASE invest in producing proper heirlooms from your photography. You won’t regret it.

Bride and groom on Glenelgs Jetty

The Legal stuff

Ok, this bit is boring, but you must, for your new family’s sake, visit a lawyer and make sure everything is in order. Consider your finances, are you going to combine incomes and bank accounts? Have your sorted out any life insurance and executors of estates? Definitely sort out a will, and if there are any children involved, ensure their future. Make sure you add any new items such as engagement rings, or expensive gifts to your insurance. Possibly also consider family health insurance to save money?

Review your wedding suppliers

Many wedding vendors are small businesses that rely heavily on your testimonials after the fact. As a wedding photographer most of my business comes from people surfing the internet or hearing about my work from friends. Many couples will read reviews I’ve received from previous clients to gain an insight on how good I am. Leaving a favourable review on places like Facebook, Google and ABIA go a long way in supporting the business that made your day so memorable and will help any new couples with selecting the very best.

Head to the dry cleaners

Of all the things on this list of things to do after your wedding, this one may well be one of the first you’ll do before heading out on that honeymoon. Go and get that expensive dress dry cleaned! Unless of course you’re planning on having a ‘destroy the dress’ photoshoot. Same goes for the men’s suits if you bought them and not rented.

Wedding dress

I’m sorry if you think I’ve just given you so much more to do on top of the stress of planning your perfect wedding, but going through this list is pretty important! Many newly weds forget about some of these and can be worse off for it. If you can think of any other items to add to this list of things to do after your wedding please feel free to comment below and I’ll add them!

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Why are wedding gowns white? A History

Elegant bride in white lace wedding dress holding a bouquet in a softly lit room.

Why are wedding gowns white?

It is perhaps the most iconic scene from any wedding day, the white wedding dress adorning the beaming bride. But why are wedding gowns white? And why do brides wear white? There is a huge number reasons, not in the least the fact that white is the brightest of colours, further enhancing the bride’s visibility on her big day, but it’s a tradition that has evolved over hundreds of years for a variety of reasons.

Alru Farm wedding bride

Why are wedding gowns white? A bit of history.

To be perfectly pedantic, the traditional colour of a modern white dress isn’t actually white, it’s more “Candlelight,” “Ivory,” “Ecru” or “Frost” when putting my graphic designer hat on.. But to the common layman, they all look like a white wedding dress, right? Anyway, the answer to the question of why are wedding dresses white all has to do with the popularity of some people who happened to wear white on their wedding day, and as a species who like to copy our idols, the fashion caught on and became tradition.

Victoria Albert Wedding

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria of England who reigned from 1837-1901 was the first to make white wedding dresses fashionable by wearing a pale gown trimmed in orange blossoms for her 1840 wedding to her first cousin, Prince Albert. Naturally, because she was the queen and the center of all things high society at the time, whatever she wore, everyone tried to copy.

Kind of like how it is now with everything Kate Middleton, or any red carpet celebrity wears being reported on. As a bit of a side note here, Anne of Brittany also made white wedding dresses popular all the way back in 1499, believing that white was a symbol of virginity – despite being married once before. Royal brides also chose white as it was the most difficult solour to achieve using the washing methods of the day.

Before modern wedding gowns were made to be white by Queen Victoria’s wedding, it was quite common for wedding gowns to be any colour. In biblical times, blue (not white) represented purity, and the bride and groom would wear a blue band around the bottom of their wedding attire, contributing to the poem of ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something BLUE’.

Blue wedding dress

The Traditional Colour used to be Blue!

Generally though, before Queen Victoria made it a tradition to wear a white wedding gown as a bride, the most common item of clothing a bride would wear was simply what her favourite, or best garment she had available to her and could be any color, even black. To convince her groom that she came from a wealthy family, brides would also pile on layers of fur, silk and velvet.

This was partly due to the fact that the more layers of clothing one wore meant the less body odor people were able to smell, being that bathing was not something people did often in those days.

Newlyweds share a tender moment under a veil, bathed in soft sunlight, during an outdoor wedding.

In Modern times

Today though, the answer to the question of ‘why are wedding gowns white?’ seems to be primarily because in modern society the colour symbolises innocence, purity and certainly makes the bride stand out in a crowd, like the princess she’s made out to be on her wedding day. It may also be just ‘because’, as that’s what everyone else does right? It’s tradition! 🙂

Everything on a wedding day has some sort of roots in tradition, some going back thousands of years – others being quite a modern occurance. The fact is that the answer to the question ‘why are wedding gowns white?’ is simply because people today associate this with brides and this hasn’t changed since 1840. Perhaps in another 200 years, wedding dresses may be purple? Who knows?

Wedding Gown Trends Worldwide

Across the globe, wedding gown styles vary beautifully, reflecting cultural traditions and personal expression.

Globally, colours and styles differ. In India and China, red is favoured for its symbolism of luck and prosperity. In parts of Africa, brides wear vibrant patterned fabrics that honour heritage.

While many still wonder why wedding gowns are white, modern brides are increasingly embracing individuality. From champagne tones to floral embroidery, today’s trends reflect personal stories and values.

At SvenStudios, we celebrate this diversity through photography, capturing the unique details that make each bride’s look memorable and meaningful.