Deciding on the right material is perhaps the most crucial part of choosing a men’s wedding band. Unless you’re going to get super funky, thankfully, there aren’t too many materials to choose from. The majority of men’s wedding bands come in one of the following materials: white gold, rose gold, yellow gold, platinum, palladium, titanium, stainless steel, and tungsten. Ok, that kind of sounded like a lot. But this is really the most major decision you’ll have to make. 

Metals like gold and palladium are precious metals, giving them a timeless, symbolic value, easier to resize, a little more expensive to purchase, and are generally more prone to wear. Metals like titanium and tungsten are more modern metals, meaning they’re extremely difficult to resize, usually cheaper, and are a lot more durable for every day wear and tear. It’s important to think about what color you and your bride ultimately want (do you want to match? Do you want to coordinate? Etc.) It’s not just about deciding on gold, for example, but choosing the color of gold. 

Before grabbing the first metal you like, here’s a couple of different things to keep in mind when choosing a men’s wedding band:

1. Your finger size and appearance will most likely change over the years. This may potentially make a precious metal like gold or platinum seem more desirable, as it will be easy to resize. In comparison, you would have to completely replace a modern metal ring if it no longer fits down the line. 
2. Metal allergies are real!! Make sure you don’t have an allergy to whatever type of metal you’re considering. 
3. Platinum is more durable than most precious metals and is also hypoallergenic… but you definitely pay for it. It’s going to cost you more than other precious metals. 
4. If you work with your hands a lot and can see your ring going through a lot of wear and tear, you may be better off selecting a modern metal like tungsten, which is growing increasingly popular, because it won’t incur lots of damage. 

In our experience, most men tend to keep it classic and timeless and choose a precious metal like white or yellow gold. Aesthetically, 14k and 18k white gold will look pretty much the same, the main difference is that 14k white gold will be slightly cheaper and more durable. Yellow and rose gold is a slightly different story. Aesthetically, 14k yellow gold will be a little paler in color than 18k yellow gold which will appear more like how you would picture a gold bar; and with rose gold, 14k will have a slightly pinker color while 18k will be closer to a copper color. Of course, we live in modern times, so there’s no harm in checking out some modern metals, especially because most of them could save you hundreds of dollars!