The Intricacies of Engraving Wedding Rings: What You Need to Know

When it comes to your wedding bands, wanting to add a personal touch is completely understandable. Whether it’s a wedding date, a name, or a meaningful phrase, a personalised inscription feels like the perfect finishing touch. However, engraving especially when working with a metal as rare and precious as Welsh Gold is an incredibly intricate, time-consuming and costly process.

The Hidden Risks of Inside Engraving

Many couples ask about adding an inscription to the inside of their bands. But this requires highly specialist work. To engrave in a perfect circle inside a curved band, a jeweller needs specific specialised laser machinery.

Because of the high tech required and the immense risk involved, Nigel doesn’t actually know of anyone currently UK-based who still offers this inside-engraving service. The reality of the process is brutal: if the laser machine or the operator makes a single mistake, the ring is immediately scrapped. Nigel has had this happen to him in the past forcing him to completely remake the rings from scratch. When you are dealing with rare Welsh Gold, an error like that becomes extraordinarily expensive.

Why the Typography and Ring Width Matter

We also get a lot of requests for elegant script styles or lowercase typefaces. However, whether you are engraving on the inside or the outside, the width of your wedding band dictates what is actually possible.

A wider band, say 5mm or 6mm, gives the typography room to breathe and ensures the text is legible. Typography relies heavily on "ascenders" (the top parts of lowercase letters like d) and "descenders" (the tails on letters like g). Fitting these complex shapes onto a tiny, curved surface is a monumental challenge. On the inside of a ring, it is nigh on impossible; if it can be done at all. Tt really only works using a clean sans-serif block capital typeface.

Hand-Engraving on the Outside

If you want to feature a script style or lowercase lettering, the outside of the band offers much more freedom. Here, we can hand-cut the lettering into the gold.

However, we must stress that hand-engraving is incredibly time-consuming. In fact, meticulously hand-cutting text onto the outside of a band can often take longer than it does to cast, shape, and create the entire ring itself. Because of the sheer hours of craftsmanship involved, it significantly impacts the final cost.

We are always happy to answer your questions and guide you through the design process. Hopefully, this insight helps you understand the technical realities and intricacies involved in customising rare Welsh Gold.