I'm not sure I like the idea of designing the ring. It puts a lot of pressure on the woman and it feels a bit like "here love, get yourself something". It also puts a lot of pressure on the guy money wise.

It's a bit like sending a cheque as a birthday/christmas present

I can see the logic in that. I can also see the other side, which is the notion that instead of having something off-the-shelf and kind of generic, you get something that's entirely personal and unique. So it just depends how you take it.

Tell you a story. I went to an auction once by a guy who'd spent his whole life collecting meteorites. His wife had finally got fed up of having her whole house filled with rocks - along with the cost of going all round the world to find them - and had told him to sell it all off. This isn't hearsay by the way, it was in the prospectus for the auction .

Anyway, along with lots of bits of meteorites, he had things that had been made from bits of meteorites. One of those things was a pair of wedding rings. Now, you think 'what, stone wedding rings?' but no. Meteorites are actually mostly iron. They have an elliptical orbit in space and as they go round the sun, repeatedly nearer then farther away, they get repeatedly heated and cooled, heated and cooled, hundreds of times over the course of millions of years, all in zero gravity.

The result of this natural process is that meteoric iron has a very peculiar crystalline structure and it's a structure that cannot be formed on planet Earth. It's simply physically impossible. And each meteorite has it's own crystal structure, so you can trace bits of meteorite back to the same initial lump that fell out of the sky. These rings looked... amazing. They were solid metal but they had a strange surface texture, they looked like a window that has frost on it, with lots of tiny filaments. This wasn't engraved on, this was what the metal was like all the way through.

Now, some people would look at those and say "what? Iron? It's not special. It's not gold or platinum. And what's with the look, why hasn't it got a nice engraving on it or something?'. But as someone who knew why they looked that way, how they were utterly impossible to replicate, I thought they looked incredibly beautiful.

The value of a thing is subjective, impossible to calculate for anyone else. Whatever ring Wolfie buys, his other half will cherish it not because of what it is made of or how much it costs, but because of what it represents. And that's not really quantifiable.

So buy a ring that, when you look at it, you say to yourself 'yep, that's the one'. Don't try to analyse it, because you can't. Because the biggest number on the list of things to judge it on doesn't exist yet.

Designing wedding rings together is a great idea but maybe not engagement rings.
An engagement ring is a symbol or token. If you shop for it together or design it you're putting a price on it.

Would you like to have the discussion about "I love you but not that much"

Engagement rings are much more personal to a woman than the wedding ring is.
As long as they look good together on the finger, the wedding ring usually doesn't matter.
That's why the engagement ring is much more elaborate than the wedding ring, which is usually just a plain band.
I'd never be so presumptions as to criticise someone else's selection process for a ring for their significant other. It is about the two people involved, not what anyone else may think.
You may not like the ring or agree with how it was chosen but then it wasn't you doing the picking.

Good luck to CW and future Mrs. CW.

Mark

OK, I've given the silly reply, so now I should also give the sensible one... Mrs V. says go to Tiffany's. You can't go wrong with them.

She also says it should cost three months wages, but I know we've had this conversation on the forum before, so I'll just add her words and not comment on them.

That's a lot of money to be carrying :s I'd be bricking it and never wear it if it cost that much :s


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good luck to you.

As for the ring, decide how much you can afford and then visit the jeweller. Then find the best one in your price range.

Something fairly simple and elegant (note: I did not say cheap) will be well received. It's more about the act than the ring so, providing it isn't hideous, all should be well.

This approach worked well for me.

You're not carrying money, you're wearing a gift from your lover.
(A little less shouty this time *laugh*).

Mark

A potentially extremely expensive gift, I'd probably rather carry £10k in cash on me than a bit of jewellery that costs the same

I am possibly a bit unusual, but I'm also extremely practical and I didn't want a 'rock' type ring that I would be afraid to lose or damage. I do a lot of work both on cars, with animals and in the garden and I didn't want a ring I would either be afraid to wear, or have to keep taking off and risk losing. Red chose me a black rhodium ring set with cubic zirconia which is eminently practical. The symbolism of it was always much more important than the actual 'bling' and he could have proposed with a coke can ring (if they still did them) and I've have been ecstatic.

That said, my best suggestion for a more 'normal' girl would be to buy something that you like and that you think she'd like, keep the receipt and then if she doesn't love it (I'd be surprised) you can go back to the shop together and choose something else.

If my lover was stupid enough to splash thousands on a bit of jewelry, he wouldn't be that for long

I recall the "three months' wages" thing and I ended up asking whether it was supposed to be gross or net. Either way, I don't think £10k on an engagement is a smart move at this point as it'll put a huge dent in our house deposit. I was looking at £2-3k which I felt was more reasonable, especially as she wants a matching wedding band (or two!).

I know cost shouldn't come into it but I'm thinking of the future. I would rather spend money towards a better honeymoon (she's already hinted that she liked the idea of two destinations when she learned my sister had done just that for her honeymooon). I've had a chat with my sister who reckons one matching wedding ring would be fine and then I could always get another on our one year anniversary.

I've also thought of buying a temporary ring from a jeweller's and then taking it back for one that she would prefer but the problem is that one store appears to go to a max of £2.5k and another seems to start at £2k as a minimum. Maybe I need to look at more shops.

Seriously, the whole 1/2/3 month's salary thing is entirely a product of de Beers marketing as a way to sell more diamonds. Before they started the initial campaign, diamond rings weren't even used to signal an engagement at all.