I will admit, I also did some research on durability of gemstones, and found that sapphires are more durable than diamonds. Otherwise, I would have also been looking at emeralds and garnets (my birthstone). Durability matters a lot for a klutz like me who whacks her ring against something on a near-daily basis, though…
When that topic came up, I quickly grabbed my ring with my right hand and said my engagement ring could be “traded up” off my dead body.
I tend not to associate with women who refer to their engagement ring as their “rock” (well, unless they were geologists or something cool like that). That’s entirely too materialistic for me.
Oh, and my insurance company knows how much my engagement ring is worth, but I’ve long since forgotten. It’s sparkly and beautiful and comes from the man I love more than any other in the world, and that’s what matters.
Unless I’m missing a factor here, I don’t believe this is correct. Diamonds are harder than sapphires or rubies (which are the same mineral, but colored with different trace metals.) Emeralds are the softest of the major gemstones. Diamonds may be more brittle in the most technical sense, but you’d have to do more than merely “whack” it to shatter it. It’d have to be a pretty concentrated effort.
As a matter of fact, the highest end of the Moh’s Hardness Scale is defined by diamond, at 10. Corundums (sapphires and rubies) are at 9.
My mother gave my father a watch, he gave her a bracelet, when they got engaged.
My bro and his now-wife didn’t do any official engagement as such. One day he came home and told us they’d set the wedding date, but by this time they’d been seeing each other for 7 years so it was kind of a not-surprise. When she accepted to officially “date him” (as opposed to him making sure to run into her constantly, to a soundtrack of her friends giggling), he bought a pair of silver bands which they wore until they were replaced by gold ones.
In some ways I think an engagement ring, in the pre-wedding period, is also to show/announce the world that you are engaged (I know after a few weeks I started to feel a bit odd asserting I was engaged with ‘nothing’ to back up my claim as it were). Since you’re getting married soon your engagement momento doesn’t ‘need’ to do that so much so you’re free to leave tradition behind - go for something you like Stainz - you’ll know what it represents and if anyone comments on ‘it’, whatever the ‘it’ is, you’ll have a chance to explain. (For extra girlie sparkle you can get pink diamonds!)
BTW is Mr Stainz aware that in some families the wife is ‘rewarded’ with a ring or other item of jewellry after the birth of a child ? You’re not expecting twins are you ? You’d barely be able to lift your hand with all the potentail new hardware
Anne Neville and Stillwell Angel you’ll love this quote from a friend of mine “Just one peice of advice for your engagement ring - go for something bigger than you would usually wear, even if you think it’s too flashy, because you don’t want to end up with something little and girly when you’re older” :eek:
(At this point thanks and love to Ponster, after looking in my parents’ home town, our home town and New York we finally found the perfect ring in his parents’ home town … white gold with a solitaire, it’s difficult to decribe , the band almost splits with the diamond sitting in the ‘break’, tha band curves so it looks like arms cradling the stone and has echoes of the claddagh design - when I look at it it reminds me how good / safe I feel in his arms. And the poor lad is still waiting for the ‘engagement watch’ I promised him!!)
My engagement ring is being replaced. Today, actually, the jeweller said the new one would be in.
See, the ring Dave bought for me just over three years ago is a beautiful ‘trinity’ ring, with oval diamonds. The centre diamond larger than the sides. Being oval, the end of the stone stick out from the setting a bit, and there was a flaw in the end of the centre stone. I whacked my hand on something and a chip came out of the stone.
This is after fighting with another jeweller over repairs that were needed to the ring. I lost a prong from the centre stone, and sent it in to be repaired. The setting is platinum, and the jeweller’s helper monkey didn’t take out the stones when he saudered it. Long story short, I had to threaten legal action to get my ring back from the jeweller after six months (!!) and me sending it back for repair a second time as the first repair was not acceptable.
So. We’re getting a new one, exactly like the old one. I’m not overly sentimental about getting a new one, as it’s still the same style he picked originally.
I have one ring that is both my engagement ring and my wedding ring. It has channel set diamonds, so it has sparkle. When we got engaged, I had better things to do with a few thousand dollars than drop it on jewlery (still do, although I got diamond earrings for Mother’s Day a few years ago on my request). My engagement ring from my first wedding is an antique pearl - the wedding ring was a $50 gold band.
My grandmother got a TV when she got engaged back in the early 1950s.
A friend of mine has a ring very similar to this, but the amethyst is her husband’s birthstone, rather than hers. I thought that was a really sweet touch.
I have a diamond solitaire, but it is an emerald cut rather than a brilliant, which is the only thing ‘different’ about it than the usual.
I’m planning on proposing this summer in Vegas, so I’m currently doing the ring shopping thing, all by my lonesome. I likes me a surprise.
However, I’ve was willed my grandmother’s engagement ring specifically to re-use the stone, so I just need to get a ring and setting. Personally, I think it’s a cool alternative and traditional.
Now I just need to figure out how to measure her finger without arousing suspicion.
Friends of mine are farmers. It was their second wedding each, so not as giddy as the first time. Her ring is built to withstand some serious abuse.
A single diamond with a few small birth stones on the side from her kids. But the setting is the amazing part. You can only see the diamond looking down from the top and slits in the sides. It will never fall out.
Mine is white gold with an aquamarine (his birthstone) in the center and diamonds (my birthstone) on either side. I specifically wanted his birthstone, since that would mean more to me than a diamond. The fact that it had my birthstone as well was just a bonus.
Oh, and I don’t have it yet. We picked it out together last November, but he wants to propose properly. Probably when I’m least expecting it.
My original wedding set was a yellow gold round solitaire (1/4 or 1/3 carat, IIRC - it’s been awhile!), and a very thin, plain, yellow gold wedding band. I have very small fingers, so large stones just look silly on me.
For our 10th anniversary (well intentions were for the 10th - we couldn’t actually find one small enough for me til around our 11th!), after I got into the whole Scottish thing, we got silver Celtic wedding bands. Since I inherited a ring of my grandmother’s that goes on my right ring finger, and my Luckenbooth from DH goes on my right middle finger, I’ve had some of my rings with semi-precious stones sized down to sit atop the wedding band, so I can mix and match my outfits (I’m a tad anal that way).
As an added bonus, it will drive my in-laws batshit crazy when we visit them next week. They still think we’re not ‘really’ married because my dress was ivory and not white-white.
My best friend didn’t want a diamond, so she has a gorgeous square-cut emerald (her birthstone) set in white gold for hers. The bad thing about it is that emeralds are pretty soft, so she has to be very careful, or depending on what’s going on at work that day, not wear it at all.
My mom has a 24K gold (I wouldn’t reccomend it, it’s very soft) ring with a large oval coral in the middle that was in a sort of antique cameo type setting. Eventually it got so dinged up (she never wore it, it was just a formal thing), so she melted it down and had it made into a necklace pendant and a gold necklace.
My ex-fiance gave me a 1 carat near flawless diamond in a modernish bezel setting but I gave it back, obviously. I really didn’t like it all that much.
My sister’s fiance just gave her an ideal (colorless, VVS1…you have to see this thing sparkle) 1.5 carat solitaire cut in the shape of a heart. Heart-shaped diamonds aren’t my bag but it’s totally them.
Next time I want a canary diamond. This is what I’m probably going to hint around for- Ideal Ring
One of my roommates from college, who has always been on the unconventional side, dediced that if she was going to wear a rock, she wanted a REAL rock.
Ring 1: Ruby + Gold. Wife’s favorite color is red, and we liked this better than any lousy diamond.
Ring 2: Purple stone in a silver colored setting. Just a simple little thing made by some amateur jewelers in our neighborhood. I don’t even know for sure what the thing is made of. I picked it up as a “no particular reason at all” kind of gift, and it must have cost ten bucks or so.
Guess which one she wears.
Ten Buck Ring ALWAYS gets compliments. It is the envy of the girls at her office. Seriously, people with $2000 rings are jealous. She likes it. I like it. And nobody knows enough to tell that it isn’t a “real” ring. I just wish I had thought of that 7 1/2 years ago…
