Get a really nice white or yellow gold setting with a 1-2 ct cubic zirconium stone. It will look identical to a diamond and may actually look a little nicer since it will be colorless and flawless (few people can afford a flawless colorless diamond). Then, tell your fiancee that you think it’s so much more important to save money and spend it on important things like a house. If she agrees with you, marry her. If she thinks you are a cheap bastard for not spending thousands of dollars on a piece of rock and breaks up with you, you will have learned the truth about her before it was too late.
Just speaking from personal experience here. My fiancee proudly wore her cubic zirconium while we were engaged and we were able to put a downpayment on a house in time for us to move in right after the wedding. Had she really felt that I needed to “prove” my love by wasting money on a rock, I wouldn’t have married her.
Personally, I 'm not fussy about jewelry. I didn’t even have an engagement ring. Other women feel differently. I think doing a little research first is a good idea. Does she know about this message board? If she does, you could fake it a little. Say, “Honey – have you ever heard of having a different stone than a diamnond for an engagement ring? Some girl on my message board was saying that she got her birthstone instead of a diamond? Have you ever heard of that?” This should be all it takes to get her to spill her guts about her “dream ring.” Listen carefully and buy her ring accordingly.
My girlfriend and I plan to get married, and talk about it just about daily- and it’ll be a good while before I actually ask the question. I originally planned to measure her finger with a loop of string while she was asleep and then ask a jeweller or something, but decided it was stupid and just asked her. If you want to be technical, just because you’re buying A ring doesn’t mean you’re buying THE ring, you know?
I agree with Scarlett67 - asking is romantic, although I’m sure the surprise is nice if you can do it.
I didn’t see anyone recommend it, but maybe you could ask her parents? They might know if her friends don’t, although I could see that ruining the surprise too…
freetobeme, PLEASE don’t presume to speak for all women, or even most women. For every woman you produce who LOVES diamonds, I bet I can produce one that doesn’t. We’re individuals – please don’t lump us together.
As for the suggestion of looking at her mother’s/sister’s rings, ohgodno. our tastes are completely different. Have you ever met siblings who were all alike? And I doubtmany women dress like their mothers, much less have their taste in jewelry.
Jess, I dunno – don’t you think a question like that might tip his hand and ruin the surprise?
I asked Mrs. Giraffe to marry me first and then went ring shopping with her afterward. I highly recommend doing it this way. The proposal was very romantic and she was very happy. Shopping was a lot of fun to do together, we got the perfect ring, and she was very happy. I’m certain I would not have chosen a ring that’s as perfect for her as the one we finally found, and now she’s happy every time she sees it.
Bingo Bruce_Daddy- O I had to say that
I agree with you totally. Ah but you can give her what she wants, and retain the element of surprise!
Our story: We went shopping for rings. Any ring. Together. Several times. During that process, we discovered her tastes and what she did and didn’t like, all the while, me taking secret mental notes, which she couldn’t see. No one could…they were safely hidden in my hippocampus. Alas, we found absolutely nothing that said to her, “That’s the one”.
Then, armed with this very sneaky information, I bought a nice little ring for her as a birthday present. Nothing like what she wanted in an engagement ring, but still, it was big points for eNiGma. It became her precious. But I digress. You see, part of the plan was to make her think that I was doing all this ring searching for and engagement ring!! Ha! And she got more and more excited over the little box, which I wrapped in a very large one, getting smaller and smaller like one of those Ukranian thingies that fit inside each other, only to see the ring that was only worthy of a , "Yeah that’s cute baby…oooohhh look at THAT one!!! ". I imagined her complete and utter hidden devastation when she smiled and said, “Oooh it’s beautiful honey!! Thank you!” I revelled in my deviant plan.
Which was brought full circle by designing the actual wedding set w/engagement ring and having it made for her. Exactly what she wanted. Presently it sits on her prettly little finger, nestled in between it’s wedding band and the 15 year anniversary band. The old precious consequently became part of a necklace.
::enjoying warm fuzzies::
I also think it’s an excellent idea to get the stones she likes. She is the one who is going to be growing old with it. But, as fate would have it, mrs eNiGma is a diamond girl…and she sure do shine.
Congratulations and all the best Mooch
As for “spoiling the surprise” – frankly, she isn’t likely to be terribly surprised anyway. I mean, if they’ve been dating long enough for him to think of marriage, I assure you she’s been thinking of marriage too. A proposal of marriage never really comes completely out of the blue. She’ll probably be relieved to have the chance to give him a few hints about what type of ring she wants.
I’ll leave the diamond talk to the others, except to say that when you decide what you want as far as cut (this is sometimes the most difficult decision), check out Blue Nile. They seem to have a generous policy. I heard a guy had to return the ring he bought (um, yeah…oops) and they did so, no problems.
As to not asking her father’s permission, I know it’s old fashioned and given that you guys live together, it’s baiscally a given, but I would “ask” or more like “announce” your plans to her parents anyway. I think they would appreciate it. Mine (who had been pressuring us to get married for ages beforehand) appreciated his gesture, and I think they enjoyed being “in” on the surprise. Which it was. Totally.
Not to push this issue further, but everyone notices the big diamond. I’ve been asked by most of my close friends and a few random co-workers, etc to see my ring upclose or (gasp!) try it on. And if you’ve got a rock larger than a carat, people do tend to look…
That being said, if you want to bulster the look, I recommend getting a setting with side diamonds, especially if you wish to keep the center stone smaller and within your budget.
Would you ever consider buying the ring “used”? You can get a decent 3/4 carat ring or a unique estate-like ring for about a 1000 on ebay…
And finally, if you want to avoid the guilt of possible supporting terrorism and arms getting cut off, you can always go synthetic and spend the rest of the cash on a vacation…
I read the thread fast, so I hope I’m not repeating anyone, but a sizable percentage of the diamonds available are so-called “blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds”, meaning either that they’re sold by Bad Guys to finance Bad Things (like terrorism or war), or that they’re mined in horrible conditions by people who are beholden to Bad Guys.
If you or your girlfriend is politically aware/sensitive about this sort of thing, you’ll want to either avoid diamonds altogether, or be sure that you get a diamond from a source that certifies its origin (and do some research about this).
I have an opal engagement ring. I proposed to my husband, without a ring (though I’d given him non-engagement rings before this). When we told my parents we were engaged, they somewhat teasingly asked us whether I’d given him a ring or he’d given me one. Possibly in response, he shortly thereafter gave me an heirloom that I treasure far above anything he might have bought for me. It also fits only my index finger and can’t be resized because of the nature of the turn-of-the-last-century setting. I love it. Other women either love it too, or express “sympathy” that it doesn’t fit the right finger. A very few seem disappointed that it isn’t a diamond, but they haven’t been folks I cared much about pleasing. I think you’ll want to consider how conservative your girlfriend and the people whose opinions she values are.
Your idea of sizing the ring she wears on her middle finger sounds smart to me – it’s guaranteed to be only slightly bigger than her ring finger, and most engagement-style rings are easily resized down a little.
If I were going to buy a traditional diamond ring, I’d probably get it from www.thaigem.com. I’ve bought other gems and jewelry from them and found their prices and service to be excellent, though their jewelry designs seem fairly uncreative to me. They also have a wealth of gemological information on the site.
If you’re interested in designing a ring or having your girlfriend design one, or looking for predesigned rings that are not your typical Wal-Mart style, try www.raru.com. They too have great prices and service.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I really think it’s the truth:
When you give her a ring, she’ll love whatever comes from your heart – UNTIL her friends ask to see “THE ROCK”. Then, it’s all about size. Her friends will immediately judge you based on the size of the rock – and girls, you know this happens – if it’s too small, well…
Zenster is completely right. If left to free and open markets, the diamond would be worthless. Convince her of this, and get her a sapphire or ruby.
Or, get her a HUGE CZ. I hear the CZ manufacturing process has progressed so far that a good quality CZ can be almost indistinguishable from the real thing, and jewelers have to etch a code into them to tell the difference. Has anyone else heard this?
Don’t do CZ, go for Moissanite. It even fools the carbon detectors. You can put them up to a real diamond and you cannot tell the difference.
This is the way that I am going with all future “diamond” purchases. Don’t go overboard though. keep it under a carat and don’t tell anyone! News like this spreads like wild fire.
This is seriously the best advice. It’s fun, it gives you the element of surprise, it gives her something silly to wear around before the official ring is picked, while still maintaining the ability to get her what she really wants.
For every girl who loves and treasures what her fiance picked out for her, there’s one who is secretly disappointed with something about it, whether it be style or stone or metal. I totally recommend picking out the official ring together. She may want a ruby instead of a diamond, or gold instead of platinum. She may want something vintage looking, or something with stones all the way around that can’t be sized.
I love my ring, and it’s because it’s exactly what I wanted… I helped to pick it out. A good friend of mine always wanted her fiance to pick the ring… she said that if the guy was right, he would “know” what was exactly right for her. Long story short, she is secretly disappointed in the ring.
If you do go the CZ route (or Moissanite) make sure she knows!
When I worked in jewelry, I remember a lady asking if we could clean her ring. When I checked the stone in her presence (as we were required to do), it came out as ‘not a diamond’. Boy was she crushed, to say the least. This was compounded by the fact that her friend was right there.
I have a rather different engagement ring story, but it worked out well for us, so I’ll share. We were broke when we got married, so we got gold electroplate wedding rings from Ames (discount dept. store for any who may not know). We had to pay for the wedding ourselves, as my parents were overwhelmed with my mom’s medical bills. Long story short, it was two years after our marriage, when I was pregnant with our second child, that I finally got an engagement ring. I had a job that paid commission, and one month, I did really, really well, and we decided to use the extra money to buy me an engagement ring. A friend of my dad’s, who knows a good bit about jewelry, gave us tickets to the annual gem show in D.C., and gave us this advice: “Go on the last day. Get there early, and pick out a couple of rings that you like. Don’t make any offers til late in the day. Late in the day, on the last day of the show, they’d rather deal than carry the rings home with them”. We did just what he told us to. One of the rings I liked was a square-cut (meaning tops and bottoms are flat instead of rounded) 18K band, with a 1/3 C oval-cut center stone flanked on either side by a 1/4 C pear-shaped, laying on their sides so that the pointy end points away from the center stone. The original asking price (reasonable from a jewelry-store perspective) was $900.00. Hubby offered them $600.00. The man tried to counter-offer, but hubby said, no, that’s the limit. The guy agreed, and then started adding on taxes, etc. Hubby said, “No. The total has to be $600.00” The guy said no way, but then hubby pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket, and the guy caved. I got a great ring for $600.00! That year for mother’s day, hubby bought me a square-cut band with 5 diamonds (total 1/2 C) and an S-bar design. They fit together very nicely and look great, and the whole set only cost about $800.00.
BTW, I still have the electroplate band he put on my finger when we were married.
I’m not really the marrying type, myself – or at least not the type who would want a traditional wedding with all the trappings – but if I were dating a guy who was, I’d much prefer that we went the shopping-together route. I’d want to be sure of getting something I could live with and wouldn’t regard as a huge waste of money.
My friends all loved my sapphire engagement ring. EVERYBODY agreed that a huge honking diamond ring would not look right on me anyway. My ex did have a family ring which I did not like at all, so we agreed I’d only wear it for dressier occasions. (Now, if his parents wouldn’t have had a heart attack at the thought, there was a change that could have been made to the family ring that would have made it great, even if it was a diamond.)
I’d feel uncomfortable with a ring worth more than a thousand dollars, frankly.
Yes, girlfriends love to show off “the rock” but most “friends” are not going to go “wow, much too small!”
Many women I know are more interested in the grade of the diamond rather than the size. If someone were going to give me a diamond ring, I’d rather have a small one that’s close to flawless rather than a huge one with tons of impurities.
I chose a sapphire and diamond band when I got engaged and I get tons of compliments on it. Plus it’s original; not many people have a colored stone for an engagement ring
