Mine cost $ 1,000 by the way and was paid for in cash. I was involved in picking it out. My financé told me his budget and we stayed well within that budget by my request. I love and cherish my ring. We were in a happy position were we could afford one.

But we discussed money well before we got engaged. If we would have had no money at all, we still would have married and we would have done it at no cost, no rings, no big party nothing. Who needs all that? All I needed was to be with my beloved!!

As for engagement rings– it’s a symbol, spend less on it and save more for the future . . .

The church’s intentions are selfish, and will not help or prevent the divorce rate.

I also don’t think getting your wife a nice ring is ludicrous. It’s a 30+ year investment (hopefully :)). If you’re pretty much saying you can’t afford, say, $1000, because you need to put that into the downpayment on a house, I’d consider that insulting if I was the wife, and I’m about as frugal as you can get. Not EVERYTHING has to be about the money… the whole point of being frugal is so you can spend money on things that are important. You shouldn’t have to talk your wife into wanting something less than what she wants.

But I digress. If you’re making $100K/year and suddenly are expected to spend $20K (2-3 months after-tax income) on a ring, that’s ridiculous. In most cases, anything larger than a carat on a woman’s hand looks gaudy.

Problem now? That “unique” setting means we have to pay to have a custom wedding band made to fit (unless we skip the wedding band and just use the engagment ring), so it’s made it more expensive than we expected.

Still, wouldn’t change a thing but think it’s a good lesson to share.

My wife has me. I’m at home nights and not in the bars. I’m involved with the children: check their homework every night, go to all the school conferences, set moral and ethical examples for them. The house is paid off and we have no debt whatsoever. And she has the freedom of action and peace of mind that comes from not having to be concerned about what I may be up to, or how the bills will be paid.

And if she had demanded a diamond, she would have none of this, at least not with me.

What I was getting at was that I think that your proposal is a time that over-the-top is okay. Upon re-reading, I see that Trent was focused on the monetary aspect. I was commenting mainly from a perspective of seeing him talking about it from a total perspective, basically seeing it as him saying “don’t make the proposal a huge deal”. I saw this akin to the advice you see around Christmas on pfblogs that basically says “wait until the last minute to put up your tree, take it slow, and extend the season to New Years”. It is all a matter of taste. Some people want their kids to be excited about Christmas morning for weeks in advance. Some people want their proposal to be a spectacular event, others would prefer to make it more laid back.

Nonetheless, from a monetary perspective, I think he is failing to consider that it still really depends on you and the person you are proposing to, your attitudes about life, etc. I am not saying that the location/expense should effect the outcome (if so, you really should not be getting married, same goes for ring size), but I am sure that many girls would appreciate a dinner at a nice restaurant rather than a dinner at Fazolis when you are proposing even if Fazolis would be a little bit more symbolic of something.

For example, my first date with my girlfriend was a picnic at a park. I could have taken her there and proposed over PB&J, but instead I took her to a nice restaurant. I intended for us to go by the park afterwards, but unfortunately it was a bit late by the time we got done with dinner so I went with my alternate plan which was this nice secluded fountain area.

I think most of Trent’s advice is pretty sound, taken in the context of what he regularly preaches on his site. There is absolutely no reason to put yourself into debt for the rest of your lives together, but there are plenty of reasons to make it special.

I do agree that certain couples should have a pre-nup, and that is when it is not a first marriage for one or both of the parties. There could be estate considerations with step-children, etc. Or even with a first marriage, issues with a family business partly belonging to one of the spouses. Otherwise, as some of the posters here stated, with no prior assets there might not be a reason for a pre-nup. I don’t think it’s unromantic or untrustworthy to ask for one in some cases, but I agree that if the asker doesn’t trust the askee enough that they want a pre-nup, then they might not be the best suited couple for trust reasons, not necessarily for financial ones. I also think that if one party balks, find out why, don’t just dismiss that person as a potential mate. They might have a surmountable reason.

About a year later, I inherited a 2-carat diamond ring from a great aunt. Coincidentally, my brother had just gotten engaged but couldn’t afford a ring. So, I passed it to him to give to his now-wife.

The values at which each of these rings were appraised were meaningless, since each is priceless due to their history and sentimental value. I never would have sold my great aunt’s ring, so I didn’t “lose” any money by giving it to my brother. And I wouldn’t have replaced my own ring with the larger 2-carat diamond, due to the sentimental value of my own ring.

Thank you for sharing your story. You made my day.

My engagement ring was handmade by an artist on etsy.com and I love it. The center stone is a rainbow moonstone. It’s beautiful, sentimental to me, and only cost $275. If anyone is looking for an engagement ring, you might want to go there and check out Heart of Water Jewels.

What’s striking is that this was a basic checklist with really simple, but important questions. But it wasn’t a list you can just plop down infront of your significant other and start grilling them with. The counseling provided a good forum to raise these issues. Also, people get into a pattern, you may make continuing assumptions about your partner’s feelings or attitudes either based on responses they made when you first met (e.g. I could see myself having a child), and your assumptions (e.g. she likes kids, she’d like to have some of her own). We tend to assume the person is on the same page as us yet they may have changed their minds or you take something they said as affermation rather than consideration. If nothing else this will let you know you are really thinking along the same lines before saying you do.

Your friend is too high maintenance, then.. I’m glad some other poor soul married her..

I suppose one persons “overdone” is another person’s “par for the course”. IMO if your engagement/ring/honeymoon financially handicaps you, it is a mistake. Plus, marriage isn’t all gowns, butterflies, and champagne.. Might as well get used to it.

“Diamonds.. Because sometimes she just HAS to.”

Zannie, gotta disagree with you there – careful with those assumptions. Might be the case, but equally might not be!

I’m not sold on pre-nups and have recently decided not to get one with my fiance because we are in such similar money situations. Yes, things could change and we could divorce, but at this point our prenup would say we equally split all the assets. Which is what the courts will probably decide anyway. But I think that your advice will get people to at least consider the option.

The worst part of this post is the worst part of most of your posts: a condemnation of a decision other people should be allowed to make on their own. Instead of saying, “Don’t buy into that whole stupid diamond ring thing, you stupid susceptible-to-advertising jerks,” I’d prefer to see something like, “A modest ring can be as special as something bigger.” Buying or wanting a diamond ring is not a moral failing!

For the record, I do have a diamond engagement ring. I urged my fiance to go for man-made (from greenkarat.com), but his family had a ring (from Israel) and he was able to get a diamond from that for mine.