How Much Are Young Guys Spending On Engagement Rings?

I bought mine used. Made no difference that the ring had a bad history. 1.75 caret. $500 and 2 trees just laid on the ground. Love trading work for stuff.
 
22 years of married bliss for me and I never bought an engagement ring. Here is the problem for me with the hype of getting married. You spend 3 months salary on a ring, Fiance is extatic! Loves you and life is like a fairy tale. Nice wedding lots of money spent on that. She feels like cinderella, life could not be any better. 2-4 week honeymoon, the joy seems to never end. Honeymoon over and life sets in. Where is the fairy tale now? It ain't there. Real life is a shocker after the months of wedding prep and the fairytale feeling that most women have during the whole thing is gone and bitterness sets in because you could not keep the fairytale going and you are still paying for the show and bling that you thought would make her happy for the rest of her life.
Buy a 50 dollar wedding ring, get married as cheap as possible and after the wedding just keeps on getting better instead the let down that comes after most weddings. Just my .02. Oh and I talked to my wife about this whole concept before we got married.
 
I spent less than $600 16 years ago....
 
I went to one of the big stores at Friendly Center (can't remember the name). The diamond I wanted that I knew my wife would like was about $8,000-$9,000. That was just for the diamond too. I ended up buying one from Danforth Diamond off the internet. IIRC they are just up the road in Richmond, VA, so I felt comfortable that I could drive up there if problems came up. I ended up getting the same size (1 Ct) and slightly higher quality diamond including both rings from Danforth for about $4,000-$4,500 I think it was. I'll also add that I spent many hours researching diamonds, and there is a whole lot more too it than I realized. There are many criteria that a diamond is judged/scored on. Depending on the shape, certain criteria are more important that others.

I guess I am not 'young' though. I was 35 yrs old when I bought the diamond.
 
I got pretty darn lucky with both the wife and the ring.:D

I inherited my grandmothers old ring that was from the 1920's...not worth a ton(but not exactly rinky-dink either)and it is very very cool and unique.... and Kristyn loved it!!

Its not all about the money, and if you find one that agrees, KEEP HER!
 
Well, I will admit it, and Leslie knows.
I bought her one bigger and prettier than the second wife. IIRC it's a .75 carat. It's a Marque cut, and when she cleans it up, it shines and twinkles real purdy.
I priced them at the time, and they were 2K and up. I happened upon a pawn shop and got a great deal on it. . She wear it all the time except at her new job, to skeered she will rip the setting out of it.
 
72Rockcruiser said:
I got pretty darn lucky with both the wife and the ring.:D

I inherited my grandmothers old ring that was from the 1920's...not worth a ton(but not exactly rinky-dink either)and it is very very cool and unique.... and Kristyn loved it!!

Its not all about the money, and if you find one that agrees, KEEP HER!
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I am in the similar boat. my grandmother gave me her ring set matching weding band and ring. nothing huge, but every jewelry store wants to offer alot because of the quality of ring. however my finace is not the happiest with. Definitely likes the meaning but does not like the 2 tone. i can not blame her. i do not like gold either. Also for the 1st couple months she would break out. it was the combination of certain soaps, lotions, and the metals used to make the white gold. Keep in mind what metals your lady likes and watch out for white gold. Not all white gold is the same. there is different mixtures of other metals and the skin can react to these metals. I would go with gold if she likes gold or platiunm if she likes the silverish color.
 
Got my friend to build me one. It was a .83 Karat, E in color, and SI1 in clarity, and the cut is within 1% of being perfect which gives it the most fire i have ever seen out of a diamond. it had a few small blemishes but they were on the edge and covered up by the setting. I got a full platinum band and head in a 4 prong cathedral setting. I spent about 4 months salary... got it appraised and it is valued at $7,800... needless to say i did pretty darn good.

I would say that 50% of why i spent so much was for her, the other 50% was for me. I am so proud of that ring and how amazing it looks. I love the fact that it is platinum and will last a very very long time and that the diamond is one of the prettiest i have ever seen. I just always have a hard time buying something of lesser quality when i can afford better.
 
wrangler00 said:
i went to kays and almost spent a 1000 dont go crazy with it you never know what might happen
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THIS^ and i did the $800 buck route. Kay jewelers always good people and customer service for me. did it twice.:shaking:
 
Spent a couple hundred bucks but we are going out of the country for several weeks which will cost several thousand dollars. Mine wife isn't materialistic and a kick ass trip with memories is way better then a ring.
 
My chick and I have been together 6.5 years now (college sweet hearts), and have been talking about tying the knot...she really doesn't care what I get her, but everything she's drawn to, seems to be in the 3-5k range (at the chain stores), which I think is relatively reasonable. However, I figure I'll probably take the specs she's interested in and have it built.
 
To clear things up a bit, my son is starting to look. He wants to surprise her. Shes down to earth, farm girl and probably doesnt expect anything. He only makes about $30k a year. Just wondered what guys were paying to get something they liked nowadays. I paid $400 35 years ago :)
 
I had connections. Damn good connections. I paid around $3500 for a ring that's worth $12,000. 1 carat, VVS2, platinum tacori setting. Yeah it's retarded but I plan to only marry once and she was worth it to me. To this day (6 years later) I still get told how great I am for picking that one out.

I could swing the $3500 but not too much else. I'm sure he can find something nice that he can afford. I suggest that he pick it out and not her. I went in knowing what my wife liked and made my decisions that way. IMO, it'll ruin the surprise and special moment if she already knows.
 
I should be a pro at this now. lol. 3 divorces. the last 1 I spent $5000 on everything. ring and band. Im not as lucky as others. never got 1 back.
I will be posting a ring forsale in misc. soon
 
I bought mine on ebay from threekings. It was about 3k and much better than anything I found locally. The few that I found locally in the same quality were close to 10k and I did have it checked out and was real.
 
i've been looking for a long time and have looked at many stones and talked to many lapaderist...being as my father was in the gem industry for a while, i learned a lot and have become snooty as to what diamonds my gf gets. Right now she has leo's only...they're not that expensive and the 69 facet cut really does add a lot of effect to the stone. I used to care about size more, until i actually learned about the stones...and now i'm more into color than clarity or even cut. If you get a stone that's Si2/3...you won't see the inclusion without a 10x louppe...so why bother going to SI1 or VSx...there's no point. But color...color makes a huge difference. I stick to D's...but E's are acceptable in most cases. The cut, while it does make a huge difference, will generally be fine if you go with a Brand Name diamond no matter what...

But as for price...I'd say i'll have hers for under $2500....being that she doesn't like huge stones as they stick out too far for her taste (thank God on that one)...but i've even looked at a few that were as cheap as $1200!
 
i spent $980. then sold it for $400. my next one will be..wait haha no there won't be a next one
 
JC said:
To clear things up a bit, my son is starting to look. He wants to surprise her. Shes down to earth, farm girl and probably doesnt expect anything. He only makes about $30k a year. Just wondered what guys were paying to get something they liked nowadays. I paid $400 35 years ago :)
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2k would be my guess. I dropped quite a bit more than that 10 years ago on my wifes. Her reaction when I gave it to her was unexpected. She said.."I like it, but it's too big, to expensive take it back." I didn't, but now she doesn't wear it often in fear of loosing a finger to a crackhead.
 
While she has a pretty spankin' ring she doesn't wear...

My wife is so dangerous with accidental jabs from fingers/fingernails ("carelessly cut you & laugh while you're bleeding...") we BOTH decided anything more than a slick band was detrimental to OUR health (stitches for me, loss of her digits, etc)! :lol:
 
Caver Dave said:
My wife is so dangerous with accidental jabs from fingers/fingernails ("carelessly cut you & laugh while you're bleeding...") we BOTH decided anything more than a slick band was detrimental to OUR health (stitches for me, loss of her digits, etc)! :lol:
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Mine is the same
 
As Redneck as this sounds, I got my wife's ring at Wal-Mart. $600. It is real (I had it appraised) and oddly enough she gets lots of compliments on it. The best part was the wedding band I bought through E-Bay for $25 makes the combination look like it was a couple grand.

More important than all that, though is that almost 7 years later, she still loves it and would want nothing bigger or better on her finger. I can't say that about my first wife whose ring was 10x more expensive and it lasted less then 2 years.
 
I don't even want to say what I spent on it 2 years ago! She is loves it though, and that I guess is all that matters. At the time it was less than 1.5 months salary, but now it is more like 2-3 these days.
 
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