British Expats - Getting Engaged!

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Re: Getting Engaged!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gingerert (Post 9301856)

My husband and I picked out my ring together and I paid half for it. It was about Â£800, and has one large ruby in the centre with a diamond on each side. It is my favourite piece of jewellery in the whole wide world and I loved that I got to pick it out. I have very special memories of going to jewellers when we got engaged.

We also bought my husband an engagement ring, because I wanted to let everyone know he was taken! :D. His was titanium, in bullet grey.

His fingers are too fat now, so I wear his ring on my right middle finger. It comes in useful when I'm flipping people off.

We were so young... so poor... so happy... so thin... :wub:

Lots of people out here seem to replace their engagement ring when they are earning more, saying things like it's such a small stone or it was only cheap because we were poor. I think this is so sad, I love mine for the memories and can't ever imagine replacing it

Re: Getting Engaged!

Quote:

Originally Posted by N1cky (Post 9301861)

I know a woman who changed hers 3 times because she found something she liked better, granted she worked in a jewelers, but even so 3 times it 3 times to many.

Re: Getting Engaged!

Quote:

Originally Posted by N1cky (Post 9301861)

I have two. The original is a centre ruby with a diamond either side. The newer one is a canary diamond with a diamond either side. One is round cut the other is princess cut.

Re: Getting Engaged!

Maybe it's a man thing, but to me, the only engagement ring is the one presented when getting engaged - any others are just rings, unless replacing the engagement ring due to being lost, stolen, damaged beyond repair, etc :(

Re: Getting Engaged!

Quote:

Originally Posted by N1cky (Post 9301861)

Ugh!

My wife's ring barely has a few chips of diamond in it. But the number of comments she has gotten from well meaning relatives of shall we say a different generation along the lines of "Well don't you want to replace it with a bigger stone, you know just in case as insurance". Just in case? What?! Insurance?

Re: Getting Engaged!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob (Post 9301670)

Pick the rock from anywhere...find a jewelry designer you like to make the setting, cheaper than you think and it really would be unique as opposed to something mass moulded in a chain...or spend the money on something sensible :D

btw, the missus has a lump of amber for her engagement ring and it gets a lot more compliments than a shiny rock, plus it's her favourite stone.

I agree to this.
My husband bought the rock in Israel at a diamond exchange long before he met me (he insists that it was bought as an investment rather than for the chick he was dating at the time!).

Then we window shopped for designs of rings together but I left the final choice up to him (i do trust his design sense and he knows what I like and more importantly, what I don't). It was made by a local jeweler who's designs we liked; this jeweler just incorporated the original rock into a new ring.

I love my ring and get plenty of comments on it even though it's not the monster rock that so many of my work colleagues seem to think is necessary. I love it that my husband designed it.

One point to note on wedding bands if you're thinking of getting one:
some smaller jewelers charge based on weight of metal (we were looking at platinum) whereas some high street chains just charge based on design.
Our wedding bands are very simple and, since I have small fingers and the weight of platinum was very low, we purchased mine for $200 at an independent jewelers. My husband has big hands and fat fingers (!) and the amount of platinum needed was a lot so we bought his at Tiffany's where they just have a set price for a design regardless if which size you need. It ended up being $'00s cheaper than the independent jeweler.