How much did he/should he spend on your engagement ring?

[BlingRing1]

Just curious what everyone's thoughts are nowadays? I've heard of the '3 month's salary rule' (although i also heard it was 2 months and 1 month, so who knows!), but that's from a long time ago. Is it still relevant now? If not then what is better?

How much did he spend (either in £ or relative to salary)? Was it more or less than you thought/hoped he would?

Does it matter to you (honestly!)? Should it matter?

I hope you left the price tag on? Would be a shame if a non jewelry trained eye didn’t know exactly how much your fiancée loved you.
I cannot believe this post.

Mine is a ring I already owned, I really like it so didn’t see the point of buying something new when I could just use this one. When we get married it will become my wedding ring.

My partner needed to have his made as standard rings wouldn’t fit his finger, so this made it slightly more expensive than an off the shelf ring, I think it was about £450. It looks like a fairly plain platinum band, but it has some inlaid diamonds that only the wearer can really see, its very pretty and similar to the one in the picture.

Mine was around £300 I believe. We were young and didn't have much money at all. I would have been cross if he had spent a month's salary on it as we needed that money!

I have unfortunately lost it and I believe he is planning to replace it for our 10 year anniversary. Our financial situation has changed massively and will have changed even more by then. If he spent 3 months salary it would be around £15000+ and I wouldn't be comfortable wearing that. I would love a vintage ring this time, have seen lovely ones for a couple of thousand.

Mine was from eBay. I bought it from a diamond dealer (it came with certificates etc), as I thought I would have both the stone and metal reset into something else, but when it arrived I really loved it as it was. I paid about 1/10 of it’s replacement value, and I have something that is more environmentally friendly (platinum mining is really inefficient).

Also, apologies if this has already been pointed out, but wasn't this an advertisement in the past that a big jewellery company put out, prehaps it was Tiffany's (I should really Google before posting) that a ring for engagement should be X amount?
And that culture has been with us ever since.
Marketing at its finest.

Sorry mumsnet, I'm talking rubbish, it was 1930s, and the rise of diamond engagement rings. Nothing to do with Tiffany's.

Nothing - I don’t like rings so don’t have a wedding or engagement ring. If you want a ring, buy it for yourself.

I didn't know there was any rules on this.
I would think it depends on circumstances financial and otherwise.
Anyone with set rules and demands over such a mundane token should be overlooked. The person proposing should see that as a bullet dodged.
Never have I seen anything so ungrateful as people demanding how much the rock on their finger be worth so they can show off to others.... Each to their own of course but if anyone was to throw demands over this I'd think it be best for the other half to run and never look back.

Mine cost £60 in 1999 in a second hand jewellery shop. We picked it together. He could of spent more but it wasn’t necessary. I wanted a marriage not a ring

The OP doesn't come across as 'light hearted'. I've noticed a few posters coming back after a thread doesn't go too well to INSIST it was lighthearted all along!!
Yeah, right...

Didn't have one. It's a while ago now and men didn't tend to wear wedding rings- I didn't like the assumption that women had to be publicly marked out as someone else's "property". I also disliked the showing off of rings amongst women as a way of displaying the wealth of of one's "catch". He has subsequently bought me some lovely jewellery.

If you want one it should be proportionate to what you can afford as a couple. Borrowing to buy a ring which is actually beyond your means would be absurd

I don’t have an engagement ring. I don’t care. If I wanted one I can buy onr myself. Don’t need my husband to spend ££££ on jewellery for me.
Sounds like you care more about the ring than the marriage.

I would be horrified to give or receive a piece of jewellery worth thousands of pounds. There are much better ways to spend money.

My fiancée and I chose our rings together (lesbian) and they cost less than £200 total, made by an independent jeweler with recycled gold. They are gorgeous and we are very happy. We will spend more on the wedding rings, but still less than £600 total.

My husband earns £110k and mine was £500. I'm not fussed about diamonds etc and told him I've always wanted a white gold ring with one diamond on (I call it the standard engagement ring) and he got what I wanted. Very happy with mine.

I have friends that are quite demanding and like expensive taste and they have engagement rings that are in their thousands and their husbands are still paying them off now!

Overall, I think if you can easily afford it then it's not enough, you need to wince just a bit as you hand over your card!

Wft?

Or wtf even.

@BlingRing1

While I agree with some of the PP's that the 3 months salary idea is a bit outdated, I think the basis of the idea is still true.

The whole base of the idea used to be to show the prospective bride (and parents) that her intended was 1. serious about marriage and 2. that he would be able to support her financially.

That's outdated now as women have their own careers (though many still expect their partner to financially fully support them when they have children) and earn their own wages. Many also buy their partners an engagement ring also, which is similarly priced.

But it can still show how serious the proposal is to some i.e for me, a proposal with a Haribo ring wouldn't go down well, but for some this would seem really romantic.

But for all the posters screaming ''sexist'' etc, aren't most of you the ones who would still want your Dad to ''give you away?'' or other similarly ''outdated'' sexist ideas ??

My point is, not everyone hates all 'traditions', and surely it should be a decision which is personal to you ?

As a society we still value many old traditions, but some have given way to newer ideas. Neither is 'wrong', it's just personal.

Well, how much he spends on the ring depends almost entirely on how shallow his intended fiancée is.

I got engaged last year and I genuinely don't know and I don't want to know either. He nearly told me and I was just like 'stop talking, la la la!'. The most important thing to me is the commitment of the engagement ring, and wanting to spend the rest of our lives together. It was also amazing that it suits to my style as he designed it.

My DH saved probably about 1/2 a month's salary. We were really young and I did wish he'd saved for a bit longer, we could have afforded this. He made a big show of letting me pick my ring and I was acutely aware of how many compromises I was making, I was seeking a tiny diamond to fit in the budget.

We have a lovely marriage and I adore him, but it's not the lovely memory it could have been if he'd saved for a few more months.

Mine cost £2k (from a reputable highstreet jewler). We had no children and plenty of free cash. We are now divorced so I decided to get it valued. A pawn broker offered me £94!! Apparently that's all the platinum and diamonds are worth!!

@bonfireheart or you can have both. They're not mutually exclusive, are they?

Nothing, we just got married, using £27 silver rings from Debenhams. Best day of our lives followed by the happiest relationship and marriage.

Oh good grief. Sounds all very grabby to me. I bet our grandparents and great grandparents didn't expect this nonsense.

It's so interesting that commenters are saying they'd rather have something "better" than spend so much on ring and rings don't matter, it's the strength of your love. As if they can't have a good ring and strong love. As if people with cheap engagement rings don't break up. What we will not do is project our lives onto others.

OP, I don't rate people who can afford a decent ring and end up buying cheap shiny steel, especially for something as sentimental. I'd be disappointed if that happened to me. Keep your expensive ring on and ignore naysayers