Engagement ring spend tradition gone crazy?

I think peoples' priorities are funny. All individual of course, but amusing all the same. I have a £££ E-ring. My OH earns a lot, and wanted to do the traditional 1 month salary thing. Then made me laugh when ring shopping saying "errrm this 1 month thing, is that gross or net??". I rolled my eyes and said if we found sthg we liked, it hardly mattered. In the end it was in between I think. My W-ring will also cost a fair bit, but it's a forever thing. So worth it.

I have a colleague who got engaged about 10 months after I did. She has 2 E-rings - a work one (very plain, low carat eternity style) and a show one (small sub-1/4 carat solitaire). Together costing under 1/3 of my E-ring, at a guess. Yet she and her OH have a lower combined salary, adn are already getting into debt over her wedding. OK - they are younger, it's their first marriage, but they are adding anythign adn everything to the wedding. To the extent that there are now ice sculptures, a £££££ dress, and a stately home involved. Oh, and did I mention the debt?

I made a big mistake with my first wedding/marriage. We had low budget rings, concentrated all on the wedding, had stately home, horse and carriage, ££££££ flowers, live band travelling from London.... you name it, we had it. But all our time and effort went into the wedding not the marriage. Needless to say, for all that expense, we were divorced 2yrs later. This time round, we have agreed to spend on "forever things". So rings and photos, yes. Food/venue/decor/music/favours/fancy extras, no thanks.

Older and wiser? Maybe not, since we're still spending, rather than a quickie do in jeans and t-shirt followed by a pie and a pint, but I do think our priorities are more on track this time!

My OH won't tell me how much my ring cost, luckily his next door neighbour is a diamond trader and antique jewellery seller so he managed to get it at trade price rather than marked up.

We have already bought our house and I think he has saved a few hundred pounds a month since we moved in.

I was the one who initially said I would have been happy with a haribo ring, but he wouldn't do it. Sometimes I think the men are more worried about showing off than the b2b!

After proposing to me, he sat me down and told me all about the size and colour, just in case I wanted to tell people!

I'm just happy to have it now and don't care how much he spent on it!

After reading this thread I got on a Google hunt, turns out my ring's a Tiffany that retails at over £4000, I nearly had a heart attack so rang my OH and he wet himself laughing when he saw it on the website and said he paid less than half for it - gotta love jewellery dealer auctions!

Here it is!! http://www.tiffany.co.uk/Engagement/item.aspx?GroupSku=GRP10025&selectedSku=17724096#f+

To be honest, I don't know if I'd have been very happy knowing he'd spent but in a way very chuffed because I think every girl wants a Tiffany at some point (I know I spent a lot of time as a teenager browsing the site!)

I am really clumsy as well but I am really surprised with myself....I have got a big sparkler too.....not sure if its tiffany's but it did cost £1000 and its platinum with a princess cut diamond. I LOVE IT SOOOO MUCH! We have been planning our wedding for 3 years as we wanted to get a house etc and gather money.....finally only 4 weeks away! And everything is completely paid off....no debt! We were gathering the money like maniacs. We sacrificed holidays, big nights out etc etc to achieve all this.....now that the day is close it more and more feels it was all worth it!!! So I have had this ring for 3 years and havent done anything to it! I would be gutted! But even if it wasnt this ring I wouldnt mind. I AM MARRYING HIM!!!!! :-) I love the fact he chose it himself and surprised me....I didnt know he was gonna propose! I wanted to see your ring but the link isnt active so i cant click on it....any chance you could post a pic hun?

I am so excited for you! I've only been engaged since Monday so I'm a completely newbie and the wedding is 2 years away (booked this afternoon). I know you'll have an amazing day. I wasn't expecting the proposal either, if I was I probably wouldn't have broken down in tears for 45 minutes lol happy tears of course! Hopefully the picture works? I'm very proud of it and getting lots of compliments, all mum said was "I'm glad you didn't go for something massive, at least this is lady like" because I'd originally wanted a halo ring but my OH wanted to be traditional.

Its beautiful! Soooo lovely! Our rings are really similar actually! I am proud of mine as well and our wedding rings! I was crying too.....for hours! LOL LOL Congratulations by the way! 2 years will fly by! You will be surprised how much you will need to do....2 years is just enough time I think! When is the actual date then and where are you having the wedding?

2 years is right I think, it also falls on both our sets of parents 30 year wedding anniversaries which we've taken as a good omen! I've just got off the phone to the venue and booked for 6th September (3 days after his birthday so he'll never forget) we're both Catholic and a religious ceremony was important to our parents so we're off to Rome for it. Haha we're practically ring twins! Some people do it so quickly, but I want to save the money so I know that it's as perfect a day as I can get. So excited!! Whereabouts are you getting married? I bet you can't wait.

Yes, I agree. It is certainly worth the wait. We are getting exactly what we want and we are not in dept either as we gathered all the money in cash ourselves without using credit cards and loans etc! ROME???? That is excellent! And very interesting that your parents have their 30th anniverssary in the same year! We are getting married in Greece. We met in Greece the 7th July so we are getting married in Greece the 7th July. We are both religious so we are doing it in a church as well, with a christian wedding as well! (in a Greek church lol)! Are you going to Rome soon to sort things out?

My engagement ring was expensive (I think, anyway), it cost about £6000. I think the question of 'would you have been as happy with a cheaper ring' is a bit silly - in all honesty, my engagement ring to me doesn't symbolise anything, it's a nice tradition and I happen to think my ring is beautiful, but does it symbolise 'love' to me? Not really, no. I also like big diamonds, so whilst I would never have been unhappy with a smaller diamond, I certainly prefer this one. I also don't think the fact we spent a lot of money on the ring says anything about our relationship at all...I find this correlation a little confusing.

I will agree to an extent. My ring does mean something to me as I am emotionally connected to it. Every time I look at it I remember the day he proposed to me and my hear beats really fast. But yes certainly, how much it costs doesnt mean anything and doesnt tell anything about anyone's relationship I think. And yes end of the day it is a ring. I love mine sooo much but because of what it means to me.....you can have the most expensive thing in the world, you could have Diana's ring lol but if you are not actually planning to get married then you can't be called engaged. I just have that connection with my ring because when I look at it it gives me memories. :-) And if we go well back there was a time people didn't have rings etc etc

My ring means the world to me and it let's everyone else know that I'm taken. It makes me smile every time I see it and it just feels amazing. Never thought a rng would do that! Greece is beautiful! My OH's dad is Greek and Irish and we thought about Greece but couldn't pick an island and didn't fancy mainland (plus Rome's far enough away that the Cypriots won't gatecrash lol). It's nice to speak to someone else having a religious ceremony, it doesn't seem to happen much anymore! Are you going to do a report? I'd love to see how another abroad bride gets on with her day

My ring was expensive, but having said that i would have accepted a cheaper one just because h2b had spent the time to choose it. it wasnt about salary for us, more that he chose a ring he thought i would like and i do love.

h2b worried he hadnt spent enough but tbh i would have been scared to wear somethign more expensive.

wedding rings are custom made and mine isnt as expensive as my er, it was only 300 but i would have paid more if necesary. h2bs was only 1k but again it was custom made.

I don't know how much mine cost. All i know is that my H2B saved for a long time and put a lot of thought and effort into his proposal. That's all that matters to me.

On another note - there is no way i'd trust myself wearing a £ 9k ring on my finger !!

I think its lovely if you can spend that on a piece of jewellery, however if people havent got that money, and without going into detail I know of people who have bought an ER as a couple (which I wouldnt want to) I dont think that expensive ER should be an expectation for all as for some there is a choice between building a future together (spending on a house etc) and having a rock on the ladies finger.

Hi everyone,

My first post on the forum - I got engaged last Sunday. Am a little unconventional - I wanted to choose my own ring. Am off to start looking today to get an idea of what I want. To get an idea we are off to Westfield London - it has the full range from H Samuel through to Tiffanys and so thought it would be a good place to get an idea of styles, prices, what shape diamond etc I prefer. I thougt it might then give me a better knowledge before having a look at independent jewellers / Hatton Garden etc. Not very romantic I guess, but am so excited! Again, money is a key issue - I know that my partner has been saving, and I would love to walk in to Tiffanys and choose one!, but I know I will love whatever we choose no matter what the price.

Congratulations!

Just because you want to choose your own ring doesn't mean it's un-romantic at all.

I think going to have a look to get an idea of what you like is a good plan.

From my experience, specialist jewellers where they make your ring for you give you better value than high street jewellers.

To mrsa2b2014, I will be certainly doing a repost so you can have a look if you want! We are doing the wedding in athens! Our first choice was corfu as that is the actual place we met but it was getting too complicated so chose athens in the end! What have u done so far then? Congratulations to our newly engaged lady! Happy wedding planning to you!

I think it's all personal. I have never heard of the one month wage rule before but I'm not surprised a jewellery company came up with it - it's all about marketing! My OH and I went together to choose my ring. I'm not a diamond person so the ring I chose was just under £200 I think, but it's what I like. If your OH can afford to buy a 3 grand diamond and that's what you want then good for you. If we could afford a really expensive ring I wouldn't want one, I'd be scared to loose it, I'd much rather have a holiday (I think I'm obsessed with holidays at the moment because I haven't had one since December because of saving for the wedding!)

Don't know what mine cost and I don't want too. I know it is probably pretty expensive but then OH wouldn't have spent money he didn't have, as he is very responsible with money (unlike me!).

But I love it and what it means, so couldn't really care about what it's worth or what others think of it.

Mine didn't cost anything My OH's gran gave him her mothers engagement ring and wedding ring (without me knowing), said we could do what we wanted with them, use them, sell them or adapt them etc but he proposed with the ER and I loved it and wouldn't change it for the world Its a very old ring, but very good quality and something we never would have been able to afford. Its from around **** ish his family think so have paid for some restoration etc but that's it. When it comes to sorting out the wedding rings I'm going to use the gold from the wedding band and have some sapphires set to make my dream wedding ring.
I think that its entirely an entirely personal choice, whether you spend a lot or a little, or even nothing, all that matters is that it's the right ring for you, as others have said, you will be wearing it for the rest of your life so it has to be something you love and that will last a long time!

Its not important how much the ring costs, its the sentiment and meaning behind it.

My OH is on a very good salary and I don't know how much my ring cost but as we were saving for a house last year when he proposed I wouldn't have been impressed if he'd spent a huge amount of money on the ring.

I think it does not really matter the price your future husband pays for the engagement ring, it matters if it is something he picked that you liked, that matches your fingers. I got engaged last year with a beautiful 21DIAMONDS ring. The model my husband choose was just below 1000 pounds, which is much less than his monthly salary. Nevertheless, I absolutely love it.

I always thought it was 3 months wages.... don't know where I got it from.

I have always believed its' the thought that counts, and luckily he put loads of thought and research into my ring and it is perfect. It cost a fortune, but I didnt ask for/hint that it had to be big and expensive, I just told him what I wanted.

I love him more than anything, and then I love my big expensive ring second.

Surely, if you're happy, that's all that matters?

First post on a 2 year old thread.... ?

My ring cost about 1/3 of OH's monthly salary, and that was more than I wanted him to spend but he insisted as it is the perfect ring. I didn't want him spending thousands on a ring, it was far more important that I had something to suit me, and something quirky so I was looking mostly at secondhand rings anyway. And mine has a ruby rather than a diamond so it was cheaper but I love it.

You could spend thousands on a ring and end up divorced, you can't buy love or sentiment.

Mine was £100..... Lol.

But I love it!!

I have NO idea about what mine costs, and I don't want to know - I have a feeling that I would hit the roof!

Before we got engaged h2b was sucked in by the '3 months salary' nonsense, despite me saying 'Screw tradition - that's insane!'

I hope he was sensible when choosing my ring (it is absolutely gorgeous, I do love it).

What I don't know won't kill me.... or him! haha!

I would have gone mad if OH spent that much on a ring, we're saving for a car, house deposit and now wedding, if he'd have spent three months salary on a ring we wouldn't have been able to spend as much on our wedding and other things that we wanted. I know he didn't spend more than £500 on mine and even that is to much. (I do love it though)

Don't believe the hype ladies! The "1 months salary" tradition was made up by the De Beers marketing department... it's designed to sell higher value diamonds.

Now they have probably decided you "need" to spend more so it's easy enough to change the tradition they created. De Beers control 95% of the world supply of diamonds.

Interesting thread. I gave an idea how much mine costs, mainly cos of house insurance and it would have been 1.5x H's monthly wage. I couldn't have cared less how much it cost and TBH sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable he spent that much, but I know he loved it when he saw it and that's fine. He didn't struggle to buy it, he's very careful with his money and saves to buy what he wants.

As a few have said, it's all relevant. We didn't want a big wedding, nor did I want a big dress. If fact my ring probably cost 1/4 of the price of our whole wedding, but I'm gonna wear it for the rest of my life.

My hubby to be and I share our finances, he was never going to be able to spend money at a jewlery store without me noticing. So each week he used cash to pay it off slowly. he totally caught me off guard as a result. Biggest surprise ever.

I admit, I could tell straight away he'd spent loads, and when I found out how much I actually considred taking it back.