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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think 3 months salary for an engagement ring is a bit bonkers?

126 replies

VenetiaFleet · 11/04/2015 22:42

Was chatting to a friend earlier and she mentioned that the "rule" for buying engagement rings is that the man (she was talking hetero weddings) should spend three months salary on a ring. Apparently this is the done thing but I alone in thinking this is ridiculous? If DP were to ever propose then there's a lot of other things I'd rather he spent three months salary on than a piece of jewellery!

OP posts:
pinningwobble · 12/04/2015 06:21

YANBU op. Personally it would be wasted on me as I can't tell the difference between a fancy ring and a £10 accessorize version.

Glittertwins · 12/04/2015 06:21

The power of advertising presented as fact...de Beers have certainly mastered this one but I do wonder at how many men would have a month's salary capable of covering a De Beers engagement ring?
My now DH was still a student and not earning any salary when he got mine. Maybe I should push for a upgrade??

TurquoiseDress · 12/04/2015 06:32

YANBU!

I'm sure that concept was thought up by a diamond company eg de Beers

It's utterly ridiculous that a man should use 3 months salary as s benchmark for a worthy engagement ring.

He should be buying a ring she loves, in her style- not just because it costs £££

It's totally shallow in my opinion and puts way too much pressure on the bloke.

slightlyconfused85 · 12/04/2015 07:07

Yanbu . I think it's one month but nevertheless I think it is ridiculous that people believe in a'rule'. I love my engagement ring but I am almost certain that dh wouldn't have spent that and id be upset if he had. It's lovely and I don't care what it cost

IvyWall · 12/04/2015 07:51

Surely most people get engaged fairly young near the start of their working life. So they probably don't have a three months salary to splurge on a fancy engagement ring.

ememem84 · 12/04/2015 08:15

At the time mine would have cost 3 month of dh's salary. He chose it himself.

I only know how much it's worth because I had to get it insured. And valued for insurances.

Fourarmsv2 · 12/04/2015 08:18

We were in our first year at uni when we got engaged. My ring cost a months wages (minimum wage and part time hours), but would now be little more than a days wages!

I don't wear it anyway.... My daily ring is my eternity ring that was bought as a complete surprise for the wedding anniversary after DS1 was born. Far more precious to me whatever it cost!

mommyof23kids · 12/04/2015 08:19

My dh bought me a ring worth 4 hours salary. I was not that impressed and we headed back to the shop. This time i got a wedding ring and engagement ring for a weeks salary. Six months later i got a pair of diamond earrings for the wedding that cost twice that. We could have afforded a lot more but i was worried dh would faint if he knew how much people were actually spending on rings.

FitzgeraldProtagonist · 12/04/2015 08:26

^^^^ 2p wants to propose to their DP of 6 years!

2p look at existing jewellery and note style (eg modern/antique) and metal colour preference for white/yellow gold.

If she wears rings normally and happens to wear one on the finger of her right hand, borrow it for a measure.

Ask her friend - they may already have a good idea.

Does she have a jewellery shop she covets/step slows as she passes?

No need to spend mega millions as demonstrated by thread, but some sort of investment would be better than "got you something a bit cheap". Don't over extend yourself on it and end up resentful...

Singleandproud · 12/04/2015 08:31

I'm sure I read something somewhere that predates the De beers poster where men spent a months salary on the ring so that if the family ever run into financial trouble they could pawn/sell the ring and it was a how of being dedicated to the future of the relationship.

VolumniaDedlock · 12/04/2015 08:34

I got engaged at 24. DH has just started his first proper job. we'd moved into a little flat that needed furnishing. my ring cost £100. He knew I'd go mental if he spent the cost of kitting out the flat on a ring.

I have one friend who was just a tiny bit sneery and giving me the side-eye when we and a third friend (both with big rocks) were all talking about our engagements. She ended up selling her big rock to pay for a deposit on a rented flat when she left the fiance, who was rich and generous but in all other respects a bellend.

TBH nowadays if I want an expensive ring I'll buy it myself.

AuntieStella · 12/04/2015 08:41

"I'm sure I read something somewhere that predates the De beers poster where men spent a months salary on the ring so that if the family ever run into financial trouble they could pawn/sell the ring and it was a how of being dedicated to the future of the relationship."

Can you find that and link it? And say where that tradition existed?

Because there's really no evidence readily available of it being a tradition before that, and the origins of the ad campaign are known.

MaudGonneAway · 12/04/2015 08:43

I remain gobsmacked at the effectiveness of a long-ago marketing campaign on the sheep-minded. Can I point out also that the 'tradition' of eternity rings dates from a later DeBeers campaign when they were stuck with a supply of Russian diamonds too small for engagement rings and had to invent another pseudo-tradition that would convert puddly little diamonds into major revenue and flog those rings to people who already had an engagement and wedding ring? And it worked again. People will now go all reverent about the long, meaningful and time-hallowed tradition of eternity rings.

Honestly, if DeBeers decided that your 25th wedding anniversary needed to be marked with a diamond-encrusted vaginal piercing that cost 6 months salary, people would nod and say it was 'tradition'.

Themrmen · 12/04/2015 08:45

My dp took ages to ask me because he was worried about buying a ring and the cost etc. I said I don't care how much it costs it the sentiment behind it and what it represents to us and I firmly believe that, so he proposed with a lovely ring and wedding ring (set) think it cost about 500 and no need to buy a wedding ring. My sister was very adamant that she had a platinum ring with a certain sized diamond etc. If you can afford great spend what you like

ClaireFraser · 12/04/2015 08:46

Or propose with a token 'ring' (my DH used a key ring! - private joke!) and then choose the ring together, that way she definitely ends up with one she loves. Other that it being a sapphire, I didn't have a clue what I wanted until I tried them on, and it would have been a huge amount of pressure for my DH to choose one without me.
It didn't make any difference to us that I knew the price of the ring as the money came out of our joint account anyway! So I guess technically I paid for half of my engagement ring! But it's only semantics

HicDraconis · 12/04/2015 08:47

If I'd wanted a ring that cost 3 months of DH's salary I'd have got nothing :) and there's no way I'd waste 3 months of my own income on glittery uselessness.

We chose a ring I loved with a tiny diamond (0.3 carat) but superb quality in platinum for less than a week's income equivalent. I don't wear it or the shaped matching wedding ring to work (can't scrub wearing rings), or at home (can't wear jewellery doing karate). I think all our rings have been in the safe for the last few months! 3 months salary would've been a complete waste.

BossWitch · 12/04/2015 08:49

Yeah but Maude, they came up with possibly the best advertising strap line ever -

She promised to love you for better or worse. Let her know how it's going.

Wowser!! No wonder eternity rings took off. 'Tis fucking genius.

HicDraconis · 12/04/2015 08:49

And thanks to Maud's post, I suddenly find my odd desire for an eternity ring dwindling. DH will be very pleased :)

BossWitch · 12/04/2015 08:52

I inherited my grandmother's eternity ring Hic - I swear DH breathed a sigh of relief!

MaudGonneAway · 12/04/2015 08:55

It's certainly effective! I didn't know that was the strap line. Dear me.

Hic, just call me a sour anti-bling-ite. Grin Who, come to think of it, has neither engagement nor wedding ring, nor, in fact a wedding dress. Nor any photographs of said wedding day. As in, none were taken, not that I destroyed them...

Dowser · 12/04/2015 08:55

For my first engagement I chose a really pretty ring in a very unusual setting in yellow gold. Unfortunately when the time came to wear a wedding ring it took away something from the design of my engagement ring so I stopped wearing it.

This time I chose much more carefully. I decided I didn't want yellow gold and as white gold is yellow gold that has to be re- plated I didn't want to have to give up my ring for that to happen, so I went for platinum.

I told my fiancé that I only wanted one ring . We have a marvelous jeweller in my town. We showed him the design and he tweaked it so now it's very unique. It has a medium sized diamond ( not a rock honest) in the centre which is open and then embedded either side in the shank are two tiny black diamonds.

Yes, it was expensive but not hideously so and we both love it. I told my fiancé that I wanted all the value in one ring . That seemed to make the most sense to me. It's been on my finger three years tomorrow and it's never coming off. Not even for the wedding. The jeweller designed it with comfort in mind.

Maybe just my twopennorth might like to look at having one made as an option.

My jeweller also has made me a family heirloom ring since then. It's a medium sized opal and some diamonds from my aunts and god mothers ring and some diamonds from my mothers engagement ring again he put them in an unusual setting. I love wearing it and when I'm gone it will go to my daughter and granddaughter , because we used existing diamonds and gold it cost just £300 but worth about 4 x that. Just to give you an idea.

CalleighDoodle · 12/04/2015 08:58

Well what about the far more ridiculous notion of an expensive push present that presumably originated from a forum for women...

Dowser · 12/04/2015 09:01

I'm pretty sure that started in America as a present to the wives on the birth of their firstborn.

Push present is probably the English colloquialism.

owlborn · 12/04/2015 09:13

Holy crap! 3 months salary. I can't imagine blowing that much on a ring. Why would you do that? What if it gets lost? Also, surely something that valuable wouldn't be any good for daily wear.

Engagement rings are a bit of a swindle anyway aren't they? It's all marketing.

BackOnPlanetEarth · 12/04/2015 09:17

Bollocks it a tradition - it's a marketing ploy.

You should spend what you want as long as you can afford it. It's just a ring. I got mine after I got married Confused due to a rush wedding.

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