Wearing Wedding Rings is a Personal and Cultural Decision

In many western countries the fourth finger on the left hand is considered the ring finger as it is believed that the finger has a vein running directly to the heart. But different countries and cultures have their own ring finger. It is said that historically, the wedding rings were worn on every finger including the thumb.

Today it is commonly worn on the left hand’s fourth finger. Some countries like India, Germany, Spain, Norway, and Russia traditionally wear their wedding rings on the right hand. In some situations, people opt to wear their wedding ring on the left ring finger and their engagement ring on the right ring finger. Many central and northern European couples hailing from places like Norway, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Belgium (some areas), Germany, Russia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine wear the wedding ring on the right hand ring finger.

Contemporary Greek couples who are living in western cultures follow western tradition of wearing the ring on the left but historically the grooms and brides hailing from Greece always wore the wedding ring on the right hand. Same applies to Orthodox Christians who customarily wore bands on the right. But which wedding rings to choose? You need to be cautious on the kind of rings you choose since every person does not take a liking to every kind of ring.

In cultures like the Indian culture, the left hand was primarily considered both unclean and unlucky, thus wedding rings were worn on the right. But now with education, open mindedness increasing, people are rising above the myths and orthodox thinking and the couples can be seen wearing rings on the left hand too. Generally, men wear rings on the right while the women on the left.

On which hand to wear the ring is a cultural decision and not something that is standard everywhere. Wedding decisions are personal wherever one goes but the common thing is having a wedding band or ring. The decision which finger to wear the ring on depends on personal or cultural choice.