No, I’m not proposing to anyone. And I never have. So I’m curious how the procedure works economically.
Let’s say a man is going the traditional route. He goes out and buys an expensive ring. He then asks a woman to marry him.
Obviously in most cases, he has a pretty solid expectation she’s going to say yes. But in a few cases, the woman must tell the man no.
So what happens with the ring? I’m assuming that the offer of the ring was contingent on the acceptance of the proposal so the ring still belongs to the man. But obviously he doesn’t have much use for it now and it generally represents a major outlay of money.
Does jewelry stores have a policy of taking wedding rings back? Do they do full returns and is there a return fee? If they don’t take them back is there a market for unused wedding rings out there?
Well, pawn shops are full of second hand wedding rings, so there’s always that route.
I suspect the average jewellery store might let you return it for exchange, maybe a nice watch? Or a necklace for your Mom?
(My Dad was engaged to another woman before my Mom. When she broke it off, he left the ring with his Mom. Many, many years later, when his Mom was being buried, his sister found the ring in her drawer and returned it to him. Since I was there he gave it to me. I spent the rest of that week contemplating that my Dad had a life before all of us. It was odd!)
Well, you could check their return policy, they should have one like every other store (but I’d hate to walk in there to tell them she said no). But, I’ve never met a (real, as opposed to mall) jewelry store that didn’t buy as well as sell jewelry. So, at worst you could sell it back to them. You’ll probably take a hit on the price, but you could shop around* and see if you can get a better price elsewhere. However, this is one of the benefits of using one jewelry store (and one sales person) for all your needs. While I was married, and dating my gf before that, we bought one or two things a year from the same person. Enough that the sales guy knew our names when we walked in. I would hope that he would refund me the full price if I showed back up a few days later in hopes that I would come back when I was dating someone else.
*One thing you have to keep in mind, though, is that some stores sell things for a premium if you’re ‘paying for the name’ and another store won’t give you the same amount if they don’t carry that brand. My ex’s wedding ring was by Tacori and about 3K. One day she asked how much it was worth and they said 'well, we don’t carry Tacori anymore so, to us, it’s only worth the value of the metal and the stone…about a grand. She took it to a few other places who all said the same thing. None of them carried Tacori, so all they could do is pull the stone out, sell that and melt down the ring for the metal.
Thinking about it now, I’m surprised that they wouldn’t buy it for a grand and find a jeweler that carries, in this case, Tacori and sell it to them. Maybe that is what they do, maybe it’s worth more to them this way. I don’t know.
While that’s how it’s portrayed in movies and TV, I would guess most men proposing buy the ring after the woman says yes.
However, if you do buy the ring first, you will usually have to take it back to the jeweler to resize it. Most men don’t know their fiancee’s ring size, and asking in advance is a dead giveaway.
If she says “no,” then you have a ring. You can eventually propose to someone else and get it resized (only whatever you do, don’t mention you got it for the first proposal).
First, I believe you mean engagement rings, not wedding rings.
Second, a quick googling shows that in 2009 there was just under 25m (thousand) jewelry stores in the US, plus pawn stores. While there are a number of chains, I think it’s safe to say that there are literally thousands of independent stores, each who sets their own policy so you could have every possible answer to your question depending upon the store. I have seen advertised that you could bring it back for some reasonably short period, a week or a month or so but some places probably won’t, or only will with a fee or for store credit only.
With the number of failed marriages, I’m sure there are also many thousands of broken engagements. There are also people who’ve sold them because of financial difficulties, so yes, you could buy a previously owned engagement ring.
Personally, while it might be a really good deal, financially, I know it didn’t work the first time & I wouldn’t want a ring that has bad mojo associated with it.
I think it’s pretty common to propose with a ring in hand, though it is very common to have it resized afterwards unless you know her ring size, which is rare.
Ooooh, I think that’s a not good idea. Even the easiest going woman will probably be put off by a ring you proposed to another girl with. I mean, if no one saw it but your ex-GF and you keep your mouth shut, you might get away with it, but I don’t know that I’d be willing to take that risk.
Engagement rings have stones, and are crack-ton expensive, but wedding rings, not so much. A wedding ring costs about $100, and if you want a cheaper one, like silver, gold-plate, or just a low alloy, you can get one for more like $40.
I lost weight preparing for my wedding, so after the ceremony, my ring was loose, and I didn’t want to wear it on the road trip to the Grand Canyon with camping, and three dogs, Honeymoon (it was awesome: you know someone is right for you when you both really want to take the dogs on the Honeymoon), but I didn’t want to go on my Honeymoon ringless, so I bought a gold-plated ring for $12 at Target while the real one was being sized.
I think most marriage proposals don’t come out of the blue. Most women are not taken completely by surprise. For that reason, few women say “No,” and most men know their intended well enough to know whether she’d want a ring as part of the proposal, or rather participate in picking one out.
I mean, would you really want to propose out of the blue? even if she does say “Yes,” you can run into problems trying to fit your lives together when you decided to get married essentially on a whim.
In fact, I know several women who were hit with a romantic proposal a couple of days after a practical conversation that this would be a good time to get married.
I still have MY wedding ring (the one that I wore while I was married) and I wouldn’t reuse it if I got married again. Even if this hypothetical fiance said it was okay, I still would sell it and get a new one.
I’m not sentimental, but wedding rings do represent an awful lot.
I actually have a relevant story. Many years ago, when I was young and naive, I proposed to a young woman. She turned me down. I had already bought a fairly expensive engagement ring.
I took the ring back to the store. It was a well-known, reputable jewelry store. They saw my sad face, heard my sad story. They took the ring back back and gave me a full refund – after examining the stone to determine I hadn’t swapped it for a cheaper one.
Looking back I’m so glad she turned me down. That marriage would have been a disaster. About 9 years later I met the woman who is now my wife.
ETA: that second time, I made sure she would say yes before I bought an expensive ring. For the proposal I only had a token ring.
I have no idea what “most men” do, but I don’t mind saying that I proposed to my wife (of 34 years, so far :)) without a ring. We picked one out together a week or two later.
I just could never wrap my head around the idea of getting a ring without knowing what size to get. Getting it sized afterward sounded stupid then, and it still sounds stupid now. But I’m a guy; go figure. I have been blessed with a truly understanding wife.
When I got my (now ex) her ring, A) she helped pick it out, so it’s not like she didn’t know it was coming soon and B)I told her she was totally 100% more than welcome to exchange it for a different one. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings even a little bit. She’s the one that has to wear it, she’s the one that should like looking at it.
Come to think of it, there was at least once ring that I got her over the years that she did exchange and, as I recall, the jewelery took it back with no issues.
As for sizing, as I said, getting it sized after the fact is pretty normal and while I thought that was odd, I’d guess that a many women know that’s how it works…especially if they know they’re going to get proposed to at some point soon and have already been reading wedding stuff.
Come to think of it, it’s probably better if she gets to wear an ill-fitting ring for a few days before getting it sized so she gets a feel for how much she likes it before you pay to have it sized, rather than picking one out, sending it to get sized and then she changes her mind.
I think if you are going to propose with a ring you might want to ask about the shop’s return policy before you pay thousands of dollars for the ring.
My now husband proposed to me in 1972 without a ring. Then we went to a jeweler’s, looked at stones, and picked out a setting. I have only seen men proposing with a ring in the movies, but I’m sure it’s more common than that.
My wife and I dated for about 4 years. We had looked at rings over the years. Ones I liked she did not. The ones she liked I did not. One day when were walking downtown (yep downtown) as we went past the jewelry store we looked. We both saw the same ring and liked it. I have a bad memory but I remembered that ring. ^ months later when I realized I wanted to marry this special lady I purchased the ring set. Wedding ring and Engagement ring. The jewelry store knew her ring size because they had repaired a ring that belonged to her. If she had said no I would have tried to return the set to the store. I may have had to pay a restocking fee.
My SO was engaged in his youth but it didn’t work out and the lass gave him back the ring. His mother offered to sell it for him so he gave her the ring to dispose of, and never saw or heard of it again… Until 15 years later when we met and got serious with each other. Then she suddenly announced that she still had it, and offered to return it so he could use it to propose to me. I was uncomfortable about having his ex’s ring, he was furious and uncomfortable that she’d brought it up after so many years (and that she’d kept it instead of selling it and giving him the money like she’d promised), and neither of us was ready to think about engagement at that point anyway. We didn’t take her up on it so as far as I know, she still has it.
Ugh, I hope it doesn’t end up being handed down to my daughter someday… Her step-father’s first girlfriend’s engagement ring is just too weird for her to inherit, but there’s really no logical person for it to go to. Well, except my SO who doesn’t want it either.
