I'm thinking about popping the question to my partner of almost 5 years when we go on holiday to Europe in a few months time (it will actually be 5 years then). I forsee a very long wait though until we're actually able to get married, but I still want to go ahead with it as I see it as an important milestone in our relationship, heck and it's important to me (odd, maybe, but meh).
Anyway, to my point...WTF do I do about the ring? Am I best to not get one, but we can go and pick one together, or should I have one, but what if it doesn't fit? Not having a ring seems kinda, pointless, but I don't want to get a crappy one that doesn't fit or doesn't look that great either.
petal chose her own engagement ring (an estate ring, $169, bargain) when we got engaged.
like fuck i was going to risk guessing what sort of ring she wanted.
also like fuck i was going to spend any money on it, probably would have been happier paying about half what i spent in the end, but i spose it was to make petal happy.
I paid $700 and the missus never wears it. We went together and she picked it out based on our budget. We both agreed it was a waste of money spending a huge amount on a bleeding engagement ring. Better spent elsewhere, like a deposit on a home.
Thank heavens my wife isn't a pretentious twat but a very sensible and pragmatic woman.
I found that 1 carat diamond rings on amazon are not too expensive. Plus if you're buying on amazon, go to your favourite website that has amazon ads, clear your cookies, and click through their banner, throws a bit of coin their way.
Amazon also have 6 months interest free, but maybe you have to be american, not sure.
The thing that stumps me is the ring size, I even brought it up last night, when we were watching the Sex and the City where Aiden buys the shitty pear shaped ring, to try and figure out her ring size, but she just went into a boring anecdote about girls with fat fingers. Fuck. What I did work out was that if the ring is too big it can be resized, but if it's too small you're screwed.
Does she think a preposal is coming? My GF and i checked out rings so i knew what cut she liked and the ring style, mount, finger size etc. Then it was up to me to decide how much to spend on the diamond and choose the colour, clarity etc and she waited a few months for the preposal.
I thinking guessing is a bad idea unless she has been pointing to rings in catalogues/online and you've some how figured out her finger size (try checking other rings she wears?).
I reckon choose one you think. That is part of it. I know its a forever thing so if you have doubts just get her a little token ring for $50. If you do this i reckon you need to have one picked out already. Take her there and show here that is what you wanted to get her. At last then it shows you have made the effort and made your own decision. You are the man in the relationship. Unless she is a needy and spoiled little bitch, she will love whatever you get her.
You need to do your research if you go that way of buying one unsighted by her. If she is a yellow gold girl get yellow gold. if she is white gold/silver then get that. If she is both get two-tone. If you aren't sure get two-tone.
Have a look at what she has already. Is she a chunky jewelry girl or dainty jewelry? Pinch a ring of hers that she wears on a similar sized finger and take it in. Resizing rings isn't difficult and doesn't take long after the event.
If you are getting diamond there are different grades. Go for a 'clear' diamond. I think the gradings around " i " are when it starts getting nice and clear and not yellow. Remember every diamond has an imperfection. Some you can notice as a little fleck in the diamond. Ask to have a look under the magnifier and you can see it. If you can see it with the naked eye then she will definately notice. Each one is unique.
Staff are very helpful for a poor bloke who knows nothing. Ask lots of questions. You will learn heaps about them. If you don't like who i serving you and they are just tying to sell you a ring then I'd come back and target someone else in the store if there is something you like.
The mark-up is ridiculous on jewelry. If you can't get 30-40% off then I would consider looking elsewhere.
Alternatively, if you have a mutual friend who can be trusted to keep a secret then set something up. If it is a mate of yours with a g/f then get him to take her with him under false pretenses. If its a g/f of hers (and can be trusted to keep a secret...i doubt a g/f of hers could be but hey ..maybe) get her to do a bit of random shopping together. Get her to report back to you. Then Threesome!!!!
i don't like the choosing rings together before the proposal thing, or looking at rings and stuff too heavily, takes the whole surprise out of the thing IMO.
if i were proposing (lol) i would do something like buy a nice ring (not too expensive, not a diamond engagement ring etc) and do the whole proposal and then go together to find something that she liked/within price range etc.
a friend of mine did this thing where he bought something like one of these to propose with (forget me knot, get it?) and then they went and bought a 'proper' engagement ring together after that, but she still had this nice ring which she could wear that had special meaning etc. thought that was a good idea.
just nick one of their rings and get it sized if you're worried about sizing.
Thanks guys. It's good to hear what other people did. I think based on the above and my own view I'm going to get something beforehand, hope it fits and we'll go from there.
In terms of cost, I probably wouldn't spend more than a couple of hundred dollars, but I should be able to get something pretty nice for that.
Maybe I'm a little sad, but I'm actually excited about it - we are going to be staying in Santorini for a few days and I'm going to propose there :)
EDIT - I'm all about the 'surprise' of it...so yeah, I think I need something when I actually do it.
I also would advise against buying any old ring in advance. As blokes we really have no fucking idea what women want with these things, even if we think we do.
I just used a stand in ring that ended up being to big. She just wore it on her right hand until we got the ring six weeks later as we ended up buying overseas.
(Disclaimer: I think jewelry is stupid and encourage any behaviour that lowers the priority of shiny rocks!)
If you are considering buying an expensive diamond thing (which it sounds like you aren't) I would encourage you to look at cultured diamonds - diamonds produced artificially. They are generally significantly cheaper (I have heard up to 10x cheaper for the same carat weight for some variants, but I haven't confirmed that with my own eyes).
As a result you can get rocks that are massively bigger than "real" diamonds. I have read several anecdotes (from nerds mostly) who have bought their partner a freaking massive cultured diamond, being worried that they had a problem with it not being "real", but once their partner discovered that she could go out and show her friends this massive rock that made theirs look tiny and insignificant the fact that it was cultured rapidly left the picture.
Once of my favourite all-time articles is Wired's The New Diamond Age which talks about this subject. It's worth a read!
Do you even get much choice with guys rings? Most of the diamonds ones are really subtle - but I can't believe how expensive some of them are even with only 2-3 diamonds inside. Sheesh. I'll take a look at the cultured diamonds Trog too.
I'd taken her shopping for rings ages ago so I could get a feel on what ones she liked and what size, then randomly on holiday she was in a store looking at other rings and tried one on it fit, when she left I bought it. Waited couple months then popped the question. Big day is next month, and now today I am going to purchase the more expensive rings. Hers $1400, mine $400 big difference from theirs to ours. Hers is some dual band silver with diamonds all the way thru, mine is tungsten with single diamond.
Went together with her to see a family friend who got the materials at wholesale prices and then made both the engagement and wedding ring as a set. Ended up paying about half of what we would of done at a retail outlet.
If you get an expensive ring another thing to consider is if you want to insure it. It costs a bucket load to insure expensive jewellery.
When i went through the engagement saga, i stressed about the ring size too but managed to get it fairly easily in the end.
I got a really good girl friend of hers to make up some story about how she wanted to get these friendship rings for her and her best mates blah blah, end story, she got the ring size for me and my mrs knew nothing of it. Make sure the GF is trustworthy though, cause you don't her bombing it for you.
I designed my own ring to, got it made the way i wanted it, based my ideas on what jewelry she currently had and the rings she liked to wear. Was a winner, cost me a bit, but well worth the effort... the thing you need to remember tho, is that most times the engagement ring is the really nice flashy ring and the wedding band is pretty simple... so yeah, don't fuck it up if your gonna decide for her ha ha...
I proposed to my partner last year (also had been together for 5 years at the time). I knew she didn't like big ostentatious jewelry and preferred white gold / silver to gold. I spent a whole day visiting a few different places, ended up buying a .5 carat white gold diamond ring. Cost me ~$1200 and included free resizing.
As far as sizing goes, my partner has relatively slender fingers, and she ended up being a J. I think K-M is the 'normal' range. You can normally go up or down about 2 sizes with no fuss, but more than that can cause issues depending on the stone configuration and original shape of the ring.
I was a bit lucky in that I think I ended up picking the same ring that she would have. The store did say we could come back and exchange it for another one, but when we went to get it resized, she looked at the rest of the selection and said I probably picked the best one (or maybe she was just saying that :P)
I found a great designer jeweller, slapped down a $1000 deposit to "borrow" a ring to propose with. Proposed, she said yes, then told her that I had arranged an appointment with the jeweller to discuss what kind of ring she wanted for that Saturday morning. We rocked up, she got shown all sorts of stunning diamonds and spent an hour discussing settings etc with the jeweller.
We went back the next weekend to see the design he'd come up with and confirm the diamond she wanted as the centre stone and the others that she wanted as the inset stones. 2 weeks later, she had a custom engagement ring fitted to her finger and with a stone that she'd chosen. Paid the remainder of the cost of the ring and returned the "proposal ring". All up it cost about $3200 but given the quality of the stone and the fact that it was a custom design, I'd say that was remarkably cheap.
girls love to show off their engagement ring. my missus treasures hers. make sure it is a good one, but expect to never get it back (so that depends on how much of a sure thing you think the engagement/marriage is).
don't skimp on an engagement ring, a real man shows how much he wants his woman by the value of the ring. guys value things different to woman.
i hate jewellery just like trog, but remember woman think differently to us.
edit: traditionally an engagement ring is supposed to equal one month of the man's wages.
also try grays online. my missus' engagement ring cost 6k and was valued at $14k.
a real man shows how much he wants his woman by the value of the ring.
I would have thought the fact he asked her to marry him is a measure of how much he wants her. A ring is but a symbol. Symbols can be basic and still have huge meaning. Just take the swastika for instance........love invoking Godwins Law. lol
and another thing, expensive rings are a cunt to insure so if you can't afford to insure an expensive ring on an ongoing basis then go for something cheaper.
girls love to show off their engagement ring. my missus treasures hers. make sure it is a good one, but expect to never get it back (so that depends on how much of a sure thing you think the engagement/marriage is).
don't skimp on an engagement ring, a real man shows how much he wants his woman by the value of the ring. guys value things different to woman.
i hate jewellery just like trog, but remember woman think differently to us.
edit: traditionally an engagement ring is supposed to equal one month of the man's wages.
also try grays online. my missus' engagement ring cost 6k and was valued at $14k.last edited by infi at 11:50:01 13/Jul/12
Nearly everything infi has said in this post is wrong. Not "I think he is wrong", but he is objectively, unbiasedly, factually wrong. I shall do a break down for you good sire:
girls love to show off their engagement ring.
Hasty generalisation. Logically fallacy. Wrong
don't skimp on an engagement ring, a real man shows how much he wants his woman by the value of the ring. guys value things different to woman.
Another generalistion mixed in with chivalry (i.e sexism). Last bit is probably true, but blame hollywood for that.
i hate jewellery just like trog, but remember woman think differently to us.
This is completely true actually. They're a completely different species, so their thought processes, mental stability, cognitive abilities and emotional state are all different from ours (inferior actually).
traditionally an engagement ring is supposed to equal one month of the man's wages.
From wiki: The idea that a man should spend a significant fraction of his annual income for an engagement ring originated de novo from De Beers marketing materials in the early 20th century, in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds.[1] In the 1930s, they suggested that a man should spend the equivalent of one month's income in the engagement ring; later they suggested that he should spend two months' income on it.
also try grays online. my missus' engagement ring cost 6k and was valued at $14k.
Flaunting but impossible to debunk this one.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Fight on brother!
Got the engagement ring from Sovereign Hill in Ballarat whilst we were on holidays and just went and got the wedding rings from Michael Hill (massive rip offs, but only place with ones she wanted).
How much you choose to spend on the ring is entirely situational and is heavily, heavily inflouenced by the womand wearing it. Some women prize that ring and want it to be worth $$$$'s, other women are more into the symbol and would much rather a simple ring made by your own hands. Others think it is stupid to spend $$$$'s on a ring when that money could be used for other far more practical uses.
Anyway, by the time you are proposing to your woman, you would know what she thinks the ring should be (or indeed if there even should be a ring)
I forsee a very long wait though until we're actually able to get married
Ahh, it makes sense now. Malcolm Turnbull seems to be on your side from what he said in Monday night's Q&A, if the climate within the Libs wasn't so anti-Labor "don't make a move in case we accidentally shift the focus and screw it up", it'd be interesting to see who'd win in a leadership ballot between Abbott and him if it were held today.
I went and bought the diamond by itself and then on the night of proposal had a $20 cheapie from Prouds that I used. Then brought out the shiny diamond and said "Well here is the real one, you just have to build the ring around it".
Wifey loved it, she spent ages getting it designed the way she liked it and since it was custom designed it had more uniqueness and meaning to her.
I didn't think much of engagement rings. But my wife has her late grandmothers engagement ring, and despite being 50 years old, it's amazing. Custom made. So when it came time for me to propose to her, I did spend a bit on her ring. My theory is that when I'm old and rich, I don't wanna seem like I was a cheapskate in the past.
I have to agree with everyone that said save your money for other things. It's not about being a 'cheap skate', as hardware put it. A ring is just a token of something more, if you believe in all that in the traditional sense.
If she has rings that fit why not just take one of those into a jewellery shop?
I bought my Fiance's ring on my own, got pretty close to the ring size and I knew what kind of jewelry she likes, I didn't spend a truck load either! She was very happy with it and surprised I ended up proposing on top of the Eiffel Tower and even though we have been dating for over 4 years I was still shitting my pants.
After a night out and she passed out I drained the toilet and wrote marry me in bright pink lipstick on the bottom of the bowl. I then grabbed some lubricant, a bag full of marbles and an Opal engagement ring. I inserted the marbles and the ring into her anus while she was out of it and then patiently waited until she woke up. As she woke her face twisted into a contorted picture of pain and confusion and she was half way to the toilet before her eyes were half open. Bang, Bing, Bong it sounded like a machine gun going off in the bathroom. I waited expectantly for my answer but she didn't return to the bedroom, I only heard the front door slam shut.
I never saw her again, so maybe don't consider opals?
It's not that hard to get the info you need to choose a ring, white/yellow gold, traditional vs bling etc. I bought my wifes engagement ring without her knowledge and surprised her with it, wouldn't do it any other way!
If you propose in a public place, ask someone to take a photo of you and your gf, she'll just think it's a normal photo, but then you propose to her like that and you have a sweet series of photos of you proposing :)
most places now have policies that will let you swap it should she not like it - so i'd suggest going to a place that does this and make a best guess.. if she doesnt like it then you probably aren't a good match because you should know her taste, and everything that goes in her head :)
there is also sizes to consider after whether or not she likes it so make sure you take in an existing ring to get the size checked.
i paid 3.5k for this - they are cool when you put them under a black light
edit: traditionally an engagement ring is supposed to equal one month of the man's wages.
I've heard numbers from between 1 and 3 months. If you didn't have enough reason to hate the diamond industry already, here's why you've heard that:
The idea that a man should spend a significant fraction of his annual income for an engagement ring originated de novo from De Beers marketing materials in the early 20th century, in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds.[1] In the 1930s, they suggested that a man should spend the equivalent of one month's income in the engagement ring; later they suggested that he should spend two months' income on it.[1] In 2007, the average cost of an engagement ring in USA as reported by the industry was US$2,100.[11]
Spook and SFB a side, so many suckers in this thread, particularly infi, "make her feel valuable".. yeah that's what they want you to think. What a limp dick chump.
so my missus must be a shit one cause she doesn't give a flying fuck about a rock and some metal to pose off with. Pull you're head in. Not every woman is captured by all the pretentious commercial claptrap.
Wealth isn't measured by how much money you have or things you own but by how many lives you've touched for the better. A philosophy my wife and I live by.
Sounds good to me, the only rule i have in the house is, you're going to have to be both the bread winner and the bread maker!
I'm having fun in this thread but all good things must come to an end much like infi's inevitable break up when she gets over her 20k diamond ring, so i gotta sign out, peace!
p.s. All the best infi, i'm sure you're made for each other cause you both sound like pretentious bitches :)
no i don't treat her like an object. i don't dictate anything to her, she is my equal, but I know her like and dislikes, and I know she likes nice things.
i find it funny how all of you are complaining about the cost of perhaps the most significant personal object that the most important girl in the world to you is going to have for the rest of her entire life
but next week you'll go and blow $2k on some lens/macbook/carpart/audio-equip that won't be worth shit in a few years
Wealth isn't measured by how much money you have or things you own but by how many lives you've touched for the better. A philosophy my wife and I live by.
infi's life is measured by how many people he can call brown savages at once on the internet with a single post.
It's not about being tight, it's about not being a pretentious bitch wearing blood diamonds for self gratification
im on ur side aswell, but if you see it from a girls perspective its a very big "omg look how big her ring is" sort of deal and most girls love being the envy of their friends/ are competitive ie who has the best house/biggest pool/ best soccer mum car... girls say they dont care but deep down they do a little.
i find it funny how all of you are complaining about the cost of perhaps the most significant personal object that the most important girl in the world to you is going to have for the rest of her entire life
any girl that places that much importance on a piece of shiny rock (where there's ANY probability that the mining of that rock came from a conflict region to fund some warlord's desire to kill his own population) is not someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. The desire to collect non-functional shiny things is something that should be left to the (literal) birds.
The actually dollar cost of it is utterly irrelevant to me. It's just something that I think is pointless.
edit: I don't have a problem with other people doing it. It's like playing WoW. Some people derive satisfaction and enjoyment from it and I don't understand it and I want nothing more than for them to have the freedom and opportunity to keep doing it. It's just fundamentally incompatible with how I want to live my life.
I don't think the dollar value is important, I think it's important that you like the ring. For some people that will mean spending crap tonnes of money and for others not so much.
Regardless though, for me it's the symbol of the ring and not the actual ring itself that is important to me. It's interesting though to see so many different viewpoints :)
If you want to throw a bit of spin on the cost of the Ring. If you have a home loan you can work out the real cost of the ring by calculating how much extra interest you have to pay over 25 years or so because you removed the capital cost of the ring at the early stages.
For instance a $1,000 ring could really cost you $5,000 over 25 years. So it is really a $5,000 ring ;)
Infi's $20,000 ring is really a $100,000 ring. She must be stocked at that.
If you want to throw a bit of spin on the cost of the Ring. If you have a home loan you can work out the real cost of the ring by calculating how much extra interest you have to pay over 25 years or so because you removed the capital cost of the ring at the early stages.
For instance a $1,000 ring could really cost you $5,000 over 25 years. So it is really a $5,000 ring ;)
Infi's $20,000 ring is really a $100,000 ring. She must be stocked at that.
The other day I saw an ad for a watch - one of those premium ones, like Tag Heuer or something - and they made it out that you weren't buying a watch - you're buying a family heirloom that will be passed down from generation to generation within your family.
I think if you are of a mind to buy an expensive ring, that is a better way to think about it. You're not just buying a token for a wedding, you're buying something for your family that could last hundreds of years.
So I think that is a better way to think about that sort of stuf.
ever watched pawn stars or any of those pawn shop shows?
The next generation might not hold as much sentiment to a ring you worked your ass off for as you do...
given how many marriages end in divorce, your wife might not either. One of the many reasons I think it's all a big waste of time. Buy expensive rings for each other after you've been together for 20 years!
dont get me wrong i choose the ring and everything cause i new what she likes and what style but its the rock that cost me not the band i got a g color 3 carrot (.5 carrot on sides 2 in middle princess cut clarity was wsl1 i think so i knew i got a good ring. she never asked for it.
Yeah I'm not a huge ring person, I had a $20 silver ring for the ceremony, I use to wear the ring for job interviews and serious business (to cover the tat)... but it actually makes a good talking point and i'm yet to run into an old folky who is against the idea of it, most the time they think its pretty gnarly.
Before haters jump on the what if you get divorced bandwagon... already thought of it, ill just show bitches my ring and say "can't commit to a full on relationship, cause i'm married to the game y'all" win win!
well seeing as that is the 'symbol' of your love for each other one would think you would get it done properly that is all
that is functionally the same thing as someone telling someone they don't love their partner enough because they only dropped one month salary on their ring, instead of 3 months
dont get me wrong i choose the ring and everything cause i new what she likes and what style but its the rock that cost me not the band i got a g color 3 carrot (.5 carrot on sides 2 in middle princess cut clarity was wsl1 i think so i knew i got a good ring. she never asked for it.
well seeing as that is the 'symbol' of your love for each other one would think you would get it done properly that is all
I see where you are coming from however the skin on your hands sheds faster then anywhere else on the body, within a few years it is expected to fade, bleed and in general just look terrible, its already started bleeding around the edges, even in that photo which was taken a year after it was done. My wife who wears her rings over it looks even worse due to the rings rubbing against it.
We will get them touched up or redone on anniversary land marks.
This was known to us and reiterated when we got them, whilst some would see it as a waste of money we both looked at it as an ongoing celebration of taking the vows. In saying that if we cbf getting them touched up and fixed over time at least they will grow with us, all in all its pretty sweet deal.
The whole wedding was done on the cheap, a quick ceremony at the registry office (which i gotta say was nicer then some other weddings I've seen) and a piss up in a hotel bar with close friends and family.
I wouldn't change a thing (talk to my wife though and she'd redo the whole thing and send us broke for the next 20 years).
What's annoying is for diamonds carat is a unit of mass (1 carat = 200mg) while karat is actually a purity scale (24 karats being pure gold). As far as I can tell, carat is redundant just use the metric system damn it.
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