the lady needs a dose of reality. and that ring is hideous. yes, this from a female.
anything over a carat is ridiculous, anyway. rocks bigger than that simply get in the way. from a purely practical standpoint, has she never done a lick of housework?
and **jahdra ** is totally right. a platinum setting is the ONLY way to go with a diamond.
Gatorman, if you really want to invest the $30K…
If she doesn’t buy this plan, then she is actually marrying the ring, not you. Don’t do it.
Like the other posters, I think it’d be really unwise financially to spend that much on an engagement ring, and you need to talk with your fiancee about your financial plans and budget and expectations well before you go buying a big gaudy ring. Unless the both of you have trust funds, [actually, even if you both have trust funds] you need to live within your means but also plan for having a financial backup should a major emergency or financial disaster occur.
Discuss why the fiancee wants such an expensive ring. “Because I just do” is not good enough. Is it the aesthetics, the Tiffany brand, is she looking to be trendy, does she want to show off a big rock? There’s lots of aspects that can be worked on, and ultimately, she needs to give you her three biggest priorities on an engagement ring before you go buy her one. Don’t spend a car’s worth of money on something that’s likely to get stolen or look tacky within a few years.
Jiminy Christmas, $18K for an engagement ring!
My twenty-fifth anniversary is three weeks away, and I am almost certainly making more than you will be for a while yet. I bought the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan a diamond ring for the occasion. It is spectacularly lovely, sets off her blue eyes nicely, and I caught her the other day practicing casual gestures in the mirror to show it off.
And it didn’t cost me no $18K.
As mentioned, that’s a down payment on a house in a lot of markets.
Time to talk financial priorities with your SO is before you tie the knot. Now is a perfect opportunity, not to announce to her (or have her announce to you) how much you are going to spend or what you can afford, but what you can agree on.
Free advice, but it might save you some money. Maybe a lot of it.
Regards,
Shodan
If she’s insistent on such an expensive ring, you should have every right to insist on a prenup (which ideally should have a clause giving you the ring back if things don’t work out). Seems like a very fair tradeoff.
Wow, congratulations!
This post, and a few others in the thread, highlight what seems to be wiser and more traditional move - making extravagant purchases (cars, jewellery, holidays) once the couple is more established financially.
I see a lot of people in my generation wanting to have everything the best and everything now. My parents didn’t go on overseas holidays until they had paid off their house, but I have friends in their mid-20s who travel the world and return home to work as waitresses and live with their parents. I know a lot of people buying their first home, and they want the charming, well-located, well-sized terrace house - essentially they want to start off with what their parents ended up with. My fiance and I, our first washing machine is Miele, our first vacuum cleaner is Dyson, our first TV is a 37" LCD Panasonic - that’s better than his 7-figure income parents currently have. A friend of a friend earns an entry-level salary but she wears the latest designer clothes. She wants a fairytale wedding, and is willing to go into debt for it because it’s her special day.
It seems to me that expensive items used to mean that someone had made it and could now be a little frivolous. Now they seem to mean “I’ll make it one day, but I’d like to have it now.” Life would suck if you went through it denying yourself anything you wanted, but it’s easier to regret some things than others. I don’t think your fiancee is an evil, grasping bitch for wanting something pretty and fun and bragworthy. But if you guys are sensible now you can be extravagant later, and it’ll be all the sweeter.
Best of luck in any decision you make.
How about something like these?
This is probably what I will do, except that I will spend around 4-5K on the ring.
After talking to her about it, it turns out that she was just “saying” thats a ring she likes and that she understands that its something out of my means right now. So, we decided to do some extensive ring shopping!
Thank you for all your advices, you all have been VERY helpful!
:eek:
Whoa, these are waaay worse then the ring my girl picked
Good to hear that you and your fiancee are on the same (not outrageously expensive) page. Happy couple ring shopping!
Even though I know some people will say I’m not being very romantic, I do think a prenup is a great idea, regardless of ring issues, for anyone in a career like dentistry or medicine. If you end up divorced, you could end up splitting your earnings but not splitting all that lovely student loan debt. :rolleyes: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there are a few women out there who marry doctors or dentists for money, so a prenup seems like a nice extra bit of reassurance that she’s in it for the right reasons.
Anyway, good luck to you, gatorman!
Did you even bother to look through them all?
I think prenups are just a great idea. If you can’t talk about how you’ll divide things up when you care about one another and love one another, I think it bodes very poorly for dividing things up when you hate one another’s guts and really don’t want that skank to end up with your CD collection. Not that that WILL happen, but it COULD happen. The fifty plus years of your life is a LONG time.