I think it’s more the other way around, in this case. The wedding industry is constantly looking for new things to sell to the prospective brides, and they require new story lines to form the basis of selling these things.
In my understanding, the women who gravitate to these sites aren’t wildly unconventional, as a rule: any originality they bring to the process is going to come out at the level of table centerpieces at the reception, or the equivalent. So something as different as a men’s engagement ring, let alone something as fundamentally weird as this re-proposal business, isn’t going to come from their collective heads.
But if the jewelry folks and the brides’ magazines get together and sell the rings, using the re-proposal as the story line to get them into the picture, then some of them will believe it’s the thing to do. If there were a way to verify the origins of this custom-in-the-making, I’d put my money down on this origin theory. (I remember when the jewelers were selling the public on the idea of a tenth-anniversary ring a number of years back; wonder how that worked out?
I agree with LaurAnge, though, that there’s no reason for the custom of engagement rings to be specific to one sex. If one half of the happy couple is wearing a symbol that says, “I’m off the market”, it makes sense for both to do so.
If you dare to strip away the romance and social aspects, an engagement is somewhat comparable to signing a contract to purchase a house:
It’s a commitment to a future action (getting married, buying/selling the house).
The contract is completed at the time of the future action (wedding, settlement).
The whole process is highly stressful.
When it’s all over, throw a party! (reception, house warming)
So a reproposal would be comparable to me agreeing to buy a house, the seller signing the contract, and then the next day presenting the very same terms on a new contract for my signature.
Example: Adam proposes to Bonnie, and she accepts. The next day, she proposes back to Adam. Since it’s the same proposal that was already accepted, just that she’s proposing to him, there is no legal contract. I know I would be thinking, “We got engaged yesterday – WTF is this about???”
Does this sound silly to you? It sure sounds silly to me.
Bottom line – if the bride wants to feel special by proposing to her DHTB, or wants to make him feel special by him being proposed to, then it seems to me that she should just go ahead and propose to him in the first place.
Well, we con’t disagree, RTFirefly – I certainly also suspect the dark hand of the wedding industry at work here. I worded it badly, perhaps. It would have been more accurate to say that I think the wedding industry relies on “romance” to sell the crap they want to sell and, given the girly mentality of this type of bride, “romance” equals “what girls think is romantic.” You’re certainly right about girls on wedding websites being unimaginative. As I said, they’re so unimaginative that they aren’t capable of even guessing what most real guys would consider romantic (my guess: a blowjob!). A trip to the wedding websites is an interesting one, to be sure.
I should have been more careful to mention before that I don’t find a woman proposing to a man to be weird in itself – nor do I think most men would be bothered by it. It’s the re-proposal after the engagment is set that I find strange – whether it’s a woman re-proposing to a man she’s already engaged to, or a man staging a “romantic” proposal to make official an engagement that is already in force as evidenced by the couple making plans to marry. Just weird. But, Og knows, I’m not very romantic!
A friend from high school got married this past summer. I saw her with her fiance at another wedding in April of 2003, and they were both wearing engagement rings. His was a plain gold band that was going to be engraved on the inside with their names and wedding date before the wedding ceremony (and would serve as his wedding band).
They both said that they should show that they were both committed to other people (and off the market), and that’s why they decided that they’d both have engagement rings.
fizzy and I looked, when we went to get hers, for one for me as well. Some sports rings, some class rings, all big ol’ clunky things. Nothing tasteful or elegant or anything like that.
Of course, nobody has exactly caused a situation where I had to say “sorry, I’m engaged”, and the only time that’s happened to either of us was when fizzy was wearing her ring. I was, however, slightly annoyed that there were no “I’m a guy and I’m engaged” rings … if nothing else it’s yet one more thing the jewelry industry can sell us, though here in the Bible Belt I’m not entirely surprised that they only had traditional jewelry. If I had money to blow on one, we might take a look at stores up north next time we venture there, but that’s not exactly the case.
Punha, you might try looking at online sites for inexpensive but tasteful jewelry. We bought my wedding ring on e-bay, for a whopping $45, and it’s quite lovely if I do say so myself. Out of curiosity, what does a “I’m a guy and I’m engaged” ring look like, anyway?
Gunslinger wears an engagement ring - a plain silver band to match my own silver ring - but I didn’t repropose or anything to him; we just decided we were going to get married, and each got a ring to show everybody else.
If you ask me, re-proposing is pretty weird. Why not just present the ring as a gift? I strongly support the idea of women getting engagement rings for their guys. My personal opinion is that the near-requirement that men get get engagement rings for their brides-to-be is sexist - and I don’t mean sexist towards men, but towards women, though I also think it is awfully unfair that I’m expected to shell out $1,000 as an expression of my love and devotion. So I think that the idea of exchanging rings is wonderful, though I would prefer to have nothing to do with it personally. Jewlery isn’t my thing.
So re-proposing = weird. Women giving men rings as well as vice-versa = good.
Any chick that needs to get an expensive, violence-subsidizing rock out of me to “seal the deal,” and especially doesn’t expect to offer something in return = not my kinda girl.
The idea does sound like the diamond industry at work and the formula about how much you should spend on a wedding ring, that always made me laugh. I don’t think the idea of 2 rings is bad at all, in fact I sort of like it. I never wore rings before I put on the wedding band but I got used to it and after all these years I really miss not having it there. As for reproposing, that is just goofy.