Youâre ring shopping, and youâve come across a phrase you donât quite know: pavé engagement rings. Is it a particular setting style? It is just a fancy word to sound cool? Stop spiraling, weâre here to help. Read on to discover everything you need to know about pavé ring settings and pavé stones.
On a ring blessed with a pavé setting, accent stones run along the surface of the metal band itself, also known as the shank. It is wildly popular as ornamentation, for both engagement rings and wedding bands, because the accent stones embedded so close to one another combine with dazzling effect.Â
Speaking of accents, donât let the accent mark over the e confuse you. Pavé is just a French word that means âto pave.â And itâs pronounced p uh - vey , by the way. On a related note, itâs also the French word for cobblestone. Which makes sense, because pavé settings date back to a time when cobblestones were the go-to pavement choice and carthorses clopped about the city streets. In the intervening centuries, our definition of pavé settings has widened along with our boulevards and highways, but pavé still refers to a ring embedded with a series of small stones for some extra sparkle.Â
Think of the circular ring band as an unmarked trail. Pavé lays down a glittering pavement of jewels that directs all eye traffic to the centerpiece stone. The dull, rounded rocks of a cobblestone street are slightly raised to shed water and provide purchase for horse hooves. The sparkling pavers of a pavé setting are also slightly raised about the surface of the ring band, but that is part of a design to snare light for additional sparkle. Because that additional sparkle can either stand on its own or enhance a center stone, pavé settings are fixtures in wedding ring sets . Â
Collaborative sparkle is pavéâs forte, and an added bonus is the fact that the technique can be formed even on very slender rings. This allows dainty rings with a pavé band to punch above their weight â in terms of glamorous visibility â while still maintaining their delicate figure.
As we said before, pavé settingsâ technology and terminology have expanded over the years. But, in general, a sequence of small holes is drilled into the metal band. The accent stones are then fitted into the holes, after which prongs or beads of metal are folded up to hold the gemstones in position. When the small prongs are especially tiny, obscuring the least amount of the accent stone possible, it is referred to as petite pavé.Â
Alternatively, the stones can be placed in a single channel, with the upper lip of the groove securing the glittering lineup. There is some vocabulary quibbling in the jewelry community regarding the distinctions between pavé settings, bead settings and channel settings. But they are all embedded together and are often used interchangeably.
A cobblestone is larger than a pebble but smaller than a boulder. Accent stones have a much more specific range: between .01 and .20 carats. Melee is another term for these small stones, except the melee range is even smaller on the low end: all the way down to 0.001 ct.Â
When those especially small melee stones are used in a pavé setting, they are often referred to as micropavé. Just for reference, there are over 2000 carats in a pound. By itself, a melee stone wonât sparkle that much, just as a single cobble doesnât make much of a roadway. Thatâs why pavé requires teamwork to make the gleam work.
There isnât an exact number. But if you just put an accent stone on either side of the centerstone, thatâs not usually considered pavé. Those are just side stones.
Many rings â such as our Sadie â do indeed take pavé all the way. Thatâs going to be the path to maximum sparkle. But itâs also equally common to stop halfway. Thatâs because the lower half of the shank makes the most frequent contact with foreign surfaces. Itâs also the part of the ring that jewelers typically cut into when they are called upon to resize. If the ring band is wide enough, more than one line of pavé can be set into the metal.
Keep in mind that the width is different from the thickness. Width determines how much space the ring covers on your finger while thickness determines how high the ring comes off your finger. Think of width as the part of the ring you measure from above and thickness as what you can observe when the ring is in profile.Â
Rings that have a continuous setting are referred to as eternity rings, while those that stop halfway are called half-eternity rings, for obvious reasons.Â
Those double lines of pavé can be laid right against each other but, sometimes, jewelers will split the shank and put pavé on both branches. The Princess is a great example of a split shank pavé.
A halo setting also employs a series of accent stones to enhance the center stone, and some jewelers will indeed refer to this as a pavé technique. However, halo settings are exclusively clustered around the stone itself, while pavé is usually understood to refer to the band that encircles the finger.Â
However, many halo-style engagement rings also have pavé settings for even more sparkling splendor. Occasionally, jewelers will double up on both, combining a double halo with a double band of pavé. Or check out this exciting permutation: The Queen offers a triple channel approach with a halo setting.Â
Oh, and if you want to enter truly dizzying territory, there can also be hidden halos, which hover directly beneath the center stone but above the ring band. This is achieved by embedding accent stones in the strips of metal, called basket bars, which support the center stone.
Pretty much all of them. Over the years, a number of different pavé styles have emerged, which means that for any centerpiece setting, thereâs an ideal way to complement it with a band encrusted in glittering translucence. Donât believe us? Just check out this Sweetheart situation .
An engagement ring with a pavé setting doesnât just look like a gemstone perched on top of a metal band. It looks like a gemstone perched on top of a band of gemstones.
While pavé settings can bend their brilliance toward a center stone, they can also help simpler bands make more of a solo statement or do double duty as both engagement ring and wedding band. In fact, their supportive structure is what makes pavé settings such a staple in stackable wedding bands .Â
As we mentioned above, this refers to the size of the gemstones, which are set very close together. Micropavé vs. micropavé set is a matter of using prongs vs. beads to secure the gemstones.
Again, look at the versatility here. Whether the cut is pear or cushion, pavé makes an excellent partner.
Placing the accent stones in a groove rather than a succession of individually drilled holes is often described as an alternative approach to traditional pavé. But, oddly enough, this style is surging in popularity because those sleek lines of the retaining walls give it a vintage look. The accent stones are usually a little more flush with the surface of the metal band, but, as you can tell by the name, bright-cut pavé offers plenty of shine and can be the first image that comes to mind when pavé is mentioned.
This pavé setting refers to the shape of the beads holding the accent stones in place. Just because they serve a utilitarian purpose doesnât mean that they canât provide their own unique contribution to the ring design, and the distinctive U-shape does just that.
Are they hard to care for? No. Are they as easy to care for as rings without them? Well, also no. Letâs talk about exactly what we mean by that.
Theyâre beautiful, ornate and require a good amount of care. You want the light to shine through a window best? Well, youâve gotta clean it, right? The same principle applies here. The pavé setting allows you to show off your ring's brilliance beautifully but youâve gotta put in a bit more work to help it shine maximally. That said, you wonât be spending a significant amount of extra time on them, so the tradeoff is easily a net positive.
Sure, the only immediate downside to pavé settings is that they require a bit lighter touch in their care. If youâre fine with that, you should have no issues with your pavé setting and your life wonât change much when wearing it.
Well, that really just depends on your lifestyle. Yes, that sounds like a copout, but itâs true. If you live a quiet life, work an office job and are diligent about taking off your ring when youâre supposed to, then no, it doesnât affect your lifestyle. If, however, you live a fast-paced life, love being active and could be a little bit better about removing your rings, it will affect your lifestyle. In that scenario, you either make some small lifestyle changes or get a silicone ring to wear on a day-to-day basis. Both of those scenarios sound fine, but one is certainly easier.
Now, the advantage of pavé is that it allows lots of light to get to those embedded stones, but that means some grit can get there as well. Itâs up to you to do a bit of street cleaning from time to time so that the ring stays encrusted with sparkle and not with grime. Feel free to consult our cleaning tips and other ring care suggestions.
Creating pavé settings requires walking a narrow path of precision craftsmanship. Each accent stone has to be exactly placed so as not to compromise the pleasing sequence or the strength of the ring band itself. On the other hand, matching up with a pavé setting is an easy road to take. And we try to make it even easier with our generous exchange policy.Â