How Much is Reasonable for an Engagement Ring?

[Ohio Snake]

I ended up spending around $7k on my wife's engagement ring. A friend told me not to even bother with under 1ct, so I started the search there. Found a stone that I was happy with the specs, then found the perfect solitaire setting that I knew my wife would like. Went for platinum because if I'm going to spend the dough, might as well get the best. My wife still thanks me and brags to others about the ring 2 years later. And I got it all online at whiteflash.com and got a decent discount for paying cash. No way I was financing a ring.

As for wedding bands, we bought our own. She found a nice platinum band that matched her engagement ring for like $400 on blue nile. I got a couple different titanium and tungsten carbide rings off amazon for like $15 each to see which ones I liked lol. So I still have 4 other wedding bands sitting around that weren't worth the cost of return shipping.



My wife was perfectly fine with a lab created diamond. They are chemically and physically the exact same thing, so of course you can't tell the difference. Except the one made in the lab should technically be flawless.

I looked everywhere and because it's so difficult to make a diamond in the lab that is big enough to put on jewelry, they aren't any cheaper than the real thing. The use the technology mostly for cutting blades and abrasives where the diamonds are very small.

To be honest, your best bet would probably be moissonite if you want to go not diamond. It's just below diamond on the hardness scale, harder than CZ or any other 'fake diamond'. My wife has a 2+ ct moissonite ring that cost her just over a grand and it looks exactly like a huge diamond.

Your discussion on Moissonite peaked my curiosity to read about it. Pretty amazing as an alternative to a natural diamond. I read about the history, clarity, hardness and toughness as compared to a natural diamond and was impressed.

On a personal opinion, I'm more of a traditionalist and "old school" when it comes to engagement rings whereas I prefer natural diamond.
But, I have to admit...Moissonite really made me take a second look. Thinks for the info.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Lemmiwinks]

It's a trap.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Time for conspiracy

 

[jaxbusa]

While I would agree this is a good reason not to get married, it assumes there aren't any reasons to get married. If money is your driving factor in not wanting to get married, you're probably somebody that doesn't want to get married anyway and are just using it to rationalize your decision.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to get married, just as there's nothing wrong with wanting to get married. There is self sacrifice in either decision.

I appreciate that you took the time to watch it and acknowledge how right it is about the money side of marriage. I'm happily married by the way. I dated my wife for seven years before I proposed. I didn't really want to, as I'm not a big fan of marriage. She was already living with me and we were pretty much married. I married her because it meant so much to her and she was a big part of my life. I always want her with me. She has been with me through thick and thin and we hardly ever argue. Maybe just once a year. With that said, I see so many failed marriages and friends getting treated badly by marriage or its wrath. If something happens to my wife I would never get married again. People change, and you can't change them. Today's marriage is broken. You have to look at marriage as a contract or a business merger. And for goodness sake, keep sex out of your mind on this business deal! Marriage does not mean you have endless sex on tap like your favorite beer. Now, think with a clear head. Can you imagine if the rest of the business world operated like the business of marriage? Everything would be owned by one big conglomerate because it would be too expensive for companies to stop doing business with one another. Nothing would ever improve because with no competition, GE wouldn’t invent the all-in-one convection oven/microwave. GE would just sit around in a velor jumpsuit watching television all day, imagining ways her kids could be in danger, and approaching a size 16 at 55 miles and hour in the fast lane. Decisions would be made by a faceless entity of compromise that made no one happy and somehow took ten times as long. Everyone would get 50% of everything no matter how impossible that was and how little work everyone else did. And everything would suck because marriage has zero benefits. Would you go into business with a person who can potentially do nothing for your wealth but gets half when you sell out? 50% of the time, marriage doesn’t “work”, it just doesn’t fail. And then there is the child factor. I am sorry, what was a reason to get married?

 

[treynor]

Lab grown diamonds are already a 'thing' and I expect them to grow in popularity over the next decade. They're actual diamonds - same chemical composition, same properties - and they can be completely or nearly flawless, quite large (some are now available in the 10ct range), and substantially less expensive than a mined diamond.

Here's an article worth perusing: http://fortune.com/tag/ada-diamonds/

 

[Gravik]

$0.99

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[fangstang]

Is there a way to distinguish between a lab grown and natural diamond?

 

[04YellowGT]

I spent around 3k for the engagement ring and 1k for the wedding band. Thinking back that was probably too much. Not saying my wife isn't worth that but I think pretty much anything wedding related is a scam and over priced. I bought a platinum set and my wife absolutely loves it. I have friends though that went into debt and spent 10-15k on just the engagement ring. Some guys spend that much just to stroke their own ego and try to look like bigger ballers than they really are. I think that is going on more and more today and TV shows and the internet put unrealistic ideas in the man and the woman's head. Spend what you can afford. I paid cash for the set I bought and it didn't affect my lifestyle by doing it. Starting off a marriage with a huge pile of debt isn't a good idea.

 

[Deceptive]

I had my wife pick out her ring. To my surprise she picked out a small ring that was damn near flawless. It was about $1k. She has no desire to upgrade. And it has lasted longer than when I spent $2k on my first wife's ring.

 

[DBK]

I don't really regret how much I spent on my wife's ring, but I do think it's dumb. I have a problem spending that much money on anything that can come off and get lost in a drain. Save the big bucks and go on some awesome trips.

I had an incident where my ring came off, it was only by sheer luck I found it, and I haven't worn it since. Too much grief. Just get a tattoo on your finger if the proof you're married needs to be visible.

 

[lowflyn]

Sold a car to buy her ring. Ended up around $6500 on engagement. Had it made to go with the wedding band that was being made in Ireland. Then bought a tungsten carbide ring for doing car work or when she didn't want to be flashy.

Don't forget to insure the ring. It's not very expensive to add coverage to homeowners or renters. I think we have $40k in jewelry insurance. Just had to get the larger pieces appraised and file it with insurance. Covers loss, damage and theft.

Sent from my XT1045 using Tapatalk

 

[SirShaun]

I started off with the goal of wanting to put 1 Carat on her finger. We found an awesome 3 stone ring at one of the mall chain stores, which she fell in love with, but it was $2,000+. I couldn't bring myself to spend that much on a ring.

So we started pawn shopping. The experience was fun in itself. Ended up finding the exact same ring, but for somewhere between $600-$800 I think. We got it resized and all was well.

In the end, the experience and the memories outweighed the ring. We literally enjoyed the time with each other hitting pawn shops, and seeing different things. It was a good time.

She opted for a simple wedding band off Amazon, due to never wanting to take it off, and needed something durable. To this day, I don't think she has taken it off. She loves her engagement ring, and wears it when we go out.

 

[zak88lx]

My friend hooked me up with a diamond broker who had a selection of diamonds from Antwerp.
I was able to buy the diamond at cost, plus a $100 gift card to a nice restaurant, and then I hired a goldsmith in Chinatown to make the ring.
I think I spent $1500 on the stone and $300 on the ring, and it was appraised at just over $5,000. This was back when gold was $388 an ounce.