Engagement rings - "classic" or not?

[Cheeseandolivesplease]

I was talking to my husband tonight about engagement rings. He said that "most" women prefer the classic style of a solitare, or at least a solitare-like setting synonymous with a traditional engagement.
He said I was a (in a kindly teasing way) a "nightmare" as I insisted nothing would displease me more than a classic ring "similar to that of most other women" - hence why I chose my ring myself (tbh he was correct!!)
But it got me thinking - do "most" women really opt for this classic style?
Subsequent to that, I also pleasantly surprised him with retaining my Ms MyName and having a home birth, but I do like to do "me"! 😀

Congratulations OP on being different to the rest of us. 🙄🙄🙄

I think the undercurrent of your posts is the idea that there are two types of women - the sheep who like solitaire engagement rings, go to hospital to give birth and take their husbands last name and the independent thinking, patriarchy fighting women who choose differently. You’re dividing women into categories based on something as ridiculous as the type of engagement ring they like. The “most women” and then the “different, free-thinking women like me who didn’t conform.”

You said in your original post “but I like to do me.” This implies you think you made your own choices but women who made different choices weren’t capable of making their own choices.
As the previous poster said it is quite arrogant. You’re infantilising women who do things differently to you. Surely the antithesis of finding it “pleasantly surprising” to have a home birth would be rolling your eyes at a hospital birth and thinking typical woman. Or something equally ridiculous.

OP is still one pf the 75% of women who chose to have children. I'm not, despite my solitaire and husband's name. 😆

So you are for example born Jane smith
And your Husband was born " David Jones "
And you are now sll known as the
Smith-Jones?
I know quite a few families who have done this its not aa unsusl or edgy as you think.

Depends on the names. Ours has 17 letters and isn't phonetically pronounced. DS and DIL thought about double barelling for about half a second. DIL uses her name professionally and ours socially.

I don’t have that, in fact I’m trying to think of any friend who does. Maybe a couple. Mine is a concave platinum ring with 10 tiny inset diamonds around it from Liberty’s. My wedding band matches it minus the diamonds. I tried on the kind you mention and it just didn’t look right. My mother’s (married in the late 1950s) was a topaz ring surrounded by little diamonds (similar to Princess Di’s but yellow rather than blue). She gave me a square cut emerald with triangular diamonds either side. Absolutely stunning but still not my style but I’ll wear it someday.

My husband chose the ring. He chose well 👍🏻😊

You say you’re challenging the patriarchy, but sneering at other women’s choices isn’t very feminist of you. And you are sneering, whether you admit it or not; calling other women “sheep” because they like a solitaire or because they give up their father’s surname in favour of the name of a man they’ve chosen isn’t an act of sisterhood.
Your comment about previously being with a controlling man was quite illuminating, though. Are you very keen to carve out a separate identity for yourself now you’ve moved on? Fair play if you are, but there’s no need to look down on other women’s choices as part of that.

PS I don’t have a solitaire and am double barrelled with DH but I don’t think that makes me better than other women.

I chose an eternity style, a band of six sapphires and five diamonds.

Well we went one step further and my DH and my kids all have my name. He gave his up on marriage. Go me!
i think as far as solitaires go, rings have fashions like anything else. I have three diamonds and my ring is far more important to me than I ever would’ve thought it would be.
I‘m not sure that either liking what others like or having an individual preference are inherently better than the other. It’s just taste and if someone likes what others do it has nothing to do with intellect or emotional superiority or vice versa, it’s just that, taste. And also what one likes at 30, may be different to what one likes at 70.

Also (and I’m getting old so maybe this is why I’m realising it) people usually think they are more individual and different than they are. They really aren’t. We’re all the bloody same in the end and liking an interesting ring does not a progressive make.

So the OP got engaged, got a ring, married, got another ring and then had two kids…..and she thinks she’s rebelling against the patriarchy? Ffs

@Cheeseandolivesplease
Most women opt for a hospital birth even if their pregnancy is deemed low risk.

I'm so glad I was a sheep and followed the majority otherwise my daughter wouldn't be here. A totally mundane, low risk pregnancy, where even labour began perfectly normally, resulted in an emergency C-section. She would not have survived the time it would have taken to call an ambulance and get to the hospital and get into theatre. So yay for being boring old "me"!

I just don't get the "following the crowd" thing at all. Why would anyone want a ring similar in style to so many other women?

I also have a diamond solitaire (very small but the setting was designed by me so perhaps I'm a teensy-tiny bit cool and edgy and oh so superior-ly different). And shock horror, I also took my husband's surname. I don't care if it's sad and patriarchal, I love being Mrs Husband, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And?

If that makes me a boring old Mrs Mundane, then so what? Who cares, just because you made slightly different choices to some other women doesn't make you better as you so clearly think you are. I am sure there are a million and one choices you have made that are the same as other women, just because you did three things differently really doesn't make you as special as you think it does! 😂

Why is YOUR "me" a superior choice to MY "me"?

In the 2000’s fashion was to have a smallish round mined solitaire in a platinum setting, now it’s a 3 ct oval lab dusking in yellow gold 🤷🏼‍♀️ They couldn’t look more different.

I did the classic engagement ring which was very cheap as we didn’t have much money at the time. When it came to the wedding I didn’t like the chunkiness of wearing 2 rings on one finger. I chose a wedding band ring with diamonds on, this represented both engagement and wedding rings to me and I put my engagement ring away. Twenty years later I still love my singular wedding band, and the diamonds look amazing still.

FWIW, my wedding didn't include many of those traditions either.

My dress was colourful not plain white, and it wasn't a religious ceremony. No one gave me away - my dad passed away when I was younger, but I walked down the aisle, well actually staircase, with just my bridesmaids/best mates anyway.

I gave a speech and so did my mum, and I kept my unmarried name at work, while DH added one of my middle names to his. We donated our flowers to DH's nan's care home afterwards, so didn't throw my bouquet.

It still felt like a pretty conventional wedding, though, and fairly similar to quite a lot of others I went to around the same time.

Reading your other updates though OP, I can see why choosing not to keep certain traditions was meaningful and hard-won for you.

@89redballoons It sounds like a lovely wedding. Ours was tiny, but still absolutely perfect. What colours were your dress? ❤️
Thank you - it has been very hard-won as you say - at times I wasn't sure if I was going to get there - but those days are more and more a thing of the past.
With courage we stand firm!

@AtIusvue Most of those are incorrect. Interesting to see how you've assumed here though.

I have a very traditional princess cut solitaire but I really hate the setting. The claws look like staples and I chose it because I thought I should have something classic. I'm thinking of having it reset for my 40th Anniversary, as the stone is lovely.

These days I tend to wear is little five stoned Edwardian ring or an Emerald and diamond boat ring with pretty scrolling. Very unfashionable but very much more me.

Exactly. The people who are truly unique are the ones who don't feel compelled to point it out, because (a) it's obvious and (b) they don't care; they're just being true to themselves regardless of whether that's the same as everyone else or not.

People prefer a classic style because 1. it’s a lot of money and 2. Presumably you are planning to wear it forever … therefore you don’t want it to date too quickly.

@Thulpelly I personally didn't care about the cost of my ring - it was around £1000. I certainly don't see cost of ring as equating to how much someone loves me.
I still plan on wearing it forever.

This is a really “to each their own” situation. I dislike the vast majority of engagement rings I see, I shudder just thinking what DP will come up with but I’m hoping he has the sense of checking in with the right people. I don’t want to go ring shopping together.

I can see The Vision when people opt for the same surname but unfortunately for DP, I very much love my alliterative name. He missed the mark on that one, if only he had a different surname..!

You do you.

But you asked why classic tends to be popular and that is my thoughts on why.

I like something a bit different too. This is my engagement ring ❤️
https://www.libertylondon.com/uk/18ct-gold-statement-signet-ring-000828609.html