How much should or would you expect a guy to spend on an Engagement Ring?

clairemc29

Whatever you can afford! Let's be realistic, most people dont have a few months salary to spend on a ring in this day and age, so once it isnt some cheap looking ring then who cares. its the thought that counts, right!???!

kastasia

The ring on my finger at the moment cost €19. It’s not intended to be my ‘proper’ engagement ring and we’re looking at the moment (if you’re anywhere near costa del sol go to Gibraltar the day a cruise ship has come in and look for cruise ship discount of 50% or so) but a few people have complimented it and we’ve kind of joked that we could just hold onto it and use the ‘proper’ ring money towards the honeymoon. It’s always an option. Plus, you don’t have to worry about losing it.

Moonbeam

What ever you can afford,if we could afford 50 euro I would find the perfect ring for 50 euro,if we could afford 5k I would find the absolute perfect ring and probably still not spend that much!!
You will wear it forever but you also don't want to feel self conscious and like you stick out wearing it!
Also the wedding costs so much,if your not loaded and don't have a long engagement I dunno how people can afford crazy amounts unless they get themselves in to debt and to me neither a wedding or a ring are worth debt.

winterlight

chicken fingers wrote: »

Was wondering about this myself as am going ring shopping soon...

I make about $100k-$120k per year, but theres no way I am dropping 35k on a ring.
A third was NEVER the "done thing", it was 1.5 or 2 months, but likewise theres not a chance I am spending 10k or even 5k on a ring.


Ridiculous. I will pick her up a nice 1.5-2 carat round cut platinum or white gold carat ring, tasteful, durable(!), not tacky and I will spend 1000$ or 1500$ and she will love it.

Anyways I don´t even know if I want to spend cash on a diamond, I dont like the "idea" of diamonds.

Good luck finding a 2 carat ring for 1500 dollars!:D

winterlight

What's with all the negativity???

Some men really love their cars. Some women are really into jewellery. I am one of those women. It doesn't make me a bad person.

A woman wears her engagement ring every day for the rest of her life. If you said to a man 'you must drive this car every day for the rest of your life', I'm sure he would want it to be a good one.

If you're savvy and you shop around, there are great bargains to be had. I have seen stunning antique diamond rings for less than 1000euro in Alfies Antiques in London, or on the Portobello Road. If a couple is totally cash-strapped, they could go halves on the e-ring.

I've often heard girls down the pub on St. Stephen's day flashing their rings and telling everyone how much it cost. That is just common.

Neither me nor my fiance will be telling people how much my e-ring cost. In fact sometimes I feel guilty about the cost of my engagement ring, but at least I am not getting diamonds in my wedding ring as well like everyone else- I'm just getting a plain gold band. I have seen awful rings for 500euro and beautiful rings for 500euro that I would've been happy with. Besides, what lots of girls do now to balance things out, is they buy their man a good watch as an engagement or wedding present. That is something I'll be doing.

I think a couple should not worry about what everybody else is doing because it's none of their business. Every couple should find a happy medium that they're both comfortable with.

nicowa

missgroovy21 wrote: »

and ask permission from her family....us girls are old fashioned in that respect...well i am!!!

I know this has been commented on before and I'm not ripping into you or anything... If my fella had asked my parents, my mother would have hit him for being so old-fashioned and patriarchial, and my dad would have said no. But then we got engaged after four months...

stupidusername wrote: »

but the original idea was to 'buy' you from your family, to say you were spoken for, and your family didn't have to support you anymore.

When diamond rings came (back) into fashion in the 1930 - in America I believe - it was mostly as a guarantee to the girl herself.

Until the 1930s, there were actual laws on the books guaranteeing a woman's right to sue her fiance if he jilted her before the wedding day. The reason for these "Breach of Promise to Marry" laws was that even back in the day, most girls gave up their virginity during their engagements, and if they were dumped, their hoo-hahs were clearly damaged goods. The law sort of acted as a warning to cads considering seducing virgins and bailing before making honest women of them. And once those laws were abolished, women found themselves without financial protection from horny con men.
Is there any other kind?
Enter the diamond ring and diamond syndicate De Beers. Huge, expensive diamond rings offered women an expensive symbol that the man wasn't just proposing marriage to get his w/lly wet. The more expensive the ring, the more your gal's virginity was worth. Which worked out pretty well for De Beers, which went b*lls-out manipulating the **** out of public opinion.

I'm pretty sure in that case the ring doesn't get given back.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

If you melt down the gold and sell the diamond of a 5k ring, I'd be astonished if you had ingredients worth more than 2k. I have a problem with that.

Except that the price of the ring is in the design and workmanship, labour, transport etc. If you pulled apart your car and sold it for scrap you wouldn't get what you paid for it either. So that's not really an accurate statement.

doovdela wrote: »

Its true, it is how much engagement rings cost these days. Chances are a cheap engagement ring under 1,000 euro is a fake and likely to have fake diamonds! Now of course there are rings out there for general wear that don't cost much but they will wear down and getting settings changed in the likes is harder to achieve. Best to invest in a good quality ring less likely to have problems with it later in life for the lady in question. Like getting a decent ring it won't mark on her ring finger and leave a stain or something or the material won't cause an allergic reaction or something or won't cause a rash. Get what I mean lads?? Its a good investment to get a decent ring that will last the rest of her life!:cool:

We went together to get the ring and while he would have been happy to spend 2.5k online (once we'd picked out what we wanted) which would have gotten a larger diamond than what we'd get in the shop, I found any diamond above a certain size too flashy and vulgar for my tastes.

In the end it was between 2 rings, one for under 250 and one for 900. And while I loved them both I was worried the first would not age gracefully (it was very young and fashionable looking) whereas I knew I'd be happy to wear the second for decades to come.

When I showed it to my mil to be she liked it but commented that when I wanted something bigger he'd be able to afford it.

Possibly my tastes will change drastically in years to come but I love my little dainty diamond. We pretty much picked out the wedding bands at the same time and again, we're going for simple bands, under 500 (I can't remember the actual price).

I would have been happy with almost nothing being spent on it, I don't wear much jewellery and I've never owned (or could afford) anything spent on myself. The cost of the ring is not the important part. At the moment I wondering would I be able to cut out half the guests and save there too! Except I've pretty much done that already...

As someone said earlier, if it came down to it, that we couldn't afford anything, it would be just me and him and our parents in a registary office.

Makeup_Jeans

We are going ring shopping tomorrow and I cant wait

When my oh proposed to me he had bought a cheap dress ring just to have and I honestly though this was going to be my ring and I loved it, he was laughing his head off right enough

To me the price of the ring is not important, what is important is that we are together and now that we are starting our life together we have lots to think about it terms of house, wedding etc and I would really rather that we save as much as possible, so I will be insisting that the ring isnt too expensive. He has already spent an absolute fortune on the whole proposal - we were going to London for the weekend last week and when we got to the airport he announced there was a change of plan and that he was taking me to Italy instead He had arranged with my boss so I would be off Tue and Wed so it was a complete surprise. He really went all out and the whole weekend was just perfect - I will never forget it and they willl be some of our best memories. So if tomorrow I fall in love with a €300 ring that is the ring I'm going to insist on having.

Heineken Helen

Makeup_Jeans wrote: »

We are going ring shopping tomorrow and I cant wait

When my oh proposed to me he had bought a cheap dress ring just to have and I honestly though this was going to be my ring and I loved it, he was laughing his head off right enough

To me the price of the ring is not important, what is important is that we are together and now that we are starting our life together we have lots to think about it terms of house, wedding etc and I would really rather that we save as much as possible, so I will be insisting that the ring isnt too expensive. He has already spent an absolute fortune on the whole proposal - we were going to London for the weekend last week and when we got to the airport he announced there was a change of plan and that he was taking me to Italy instead He had arranged with my boss so I would be off Tue and Wed so it was a complete surprise. He really went all out and the whole weekend was just perfect - I will never forget it and they willl be some of our best memories. So if tomorrow I fall in love with a €300 ring that is the ring I'm going to insist on having.

Ah wow that's lovely... sounds like you got yourself a good one there