Engagement rings. Choose alone or with your partner? Your opinions please.

Stonedofmoo

Stonedofmoo

Stonedofmoo

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Joined
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Portsmouth
Hi all

I feel the time is right to ask my gf to marry me and I plan on doing it this summer. Now I know how much this means to her and how she's been dying for me to ask because she drops hints all the time :)

The issue is this. I've just recently paid off all my debts, and we're currently working on clearing hers. After that we have to find the money to buy out my housemate so it can be ours and we can start our life together properly. We would both like this to happen before the end of the year and that's possible if we both save every penny until christmas. After that there would be the wedding to save for etc etc etc etc, I would basically save every penny for the next 2 years to achieve it all.

With this in mind I am finding it very hard to decide what to do on the issue of the ring. Should I go it alone, spend more money than I can really afford to spend and get a ring which I hope she likes. Or alternatively should I involve her and ask her to choose a ring with me.

The upside is she would understand the cost implication if we got a expensive one. The downside is it wouldn't be a total surprise. Either way I want her to be happy with it.

It's a big decision so my question is what did you guys do. Did you go it alone, or ask your partner to be part of the process and pick a ring she would enjoy wearing the rest of her life?
 
If you go it alone you will
a) buy one too expensive and she will say what about the debts/house you irresponsible imbecile!

or

b) buy one too cheap and she will say sod off you skinflint and run off with your ex flatmate.

so take her with you so its one of her liking.
 
Should I ask her to marry me before or after. Common wisdom would suggest I ask her after we've bought a ring, but my friend asked her to marry him and then they went out together to buy a ring... which seems a bit odd.
 
She should have no input on the ring. That is your ring and you are only permitting her to wear it, thus claiming ownership. Would you take your pet to go pick out his collar? No.



:D



Seriously, I took my mum to help me select. I knew the wife's tastes, so it was pretty easy to find one I knew she'd love. I went to a proper jeweler as well, got a lesson in diamond quality and a nice selection of stones. After picking the stone, just have to find the setting for it.

Borrow another one of her rings so you can have it sized.
 
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Be sneaky and when you're walking past jewellers try to find out from her what kind of ring she'd like
i.e.
- Metal for the band, gold, white gold, platinum, silver
- Stone(s), diamond, sapphire etc
- How many stones, solitaire or more
- Cut of the main stone, brilliant, princess, emerald etc (Link)
- The setting of the stone on the band

After a few questions like "what do you think of this one" and "what do/don't you like about this one" you'll know what she's after.

If you borrow one of her rings to get a size, make sure it's one she wears on her ring finger :p

Yes she'll get the hint you're going to ask her, but she won't be 100% sure and you can still do the good old get down on one knee and produce the ring.
 
Stonedofmoo said:
Should I ask her to marry me before or after. Common wisdom would suggest I ask her after we've bought a ring, but my friend asked her to marry him and then they went out together to buy a ring... which seems a bit odd.
Click to expand...

It doesn't make much sense to get her to come along and buy the ring with you and then ask her to marry you. Its meant to be a bit of a surprise, I guess she would figure out that you were going to ask her to marry you if you bought the ring together.

Although it would be quite funny if you went out bought the ring together asked her to marry you and then said no. Well I'd find it mildly amusing.
 
Involved her completely, we picked out the stone (bought on-line), bought the setting and had it set by a local jeweller, she loves it (she'd better, lol!) :)

The surprise thing was a big deal for me and was difficult to overcome - but as it turned out there is still plenty of surprise in giving it to her 'formally' than was lost by buying it.

Prepare for your wallet to hurt though :p

Also, apparently jewellers do 'show' rings which you can use for the asking, bring back and they credit against your final ring purchase :)

*edit*

As below - you can get great deals buying loose stones - similar experience bought and put together seperately and it got appraised at over double the purchased value :)

(shameless pimp :p)

ring2acc.jpg
 
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My girlfriend really wanted to design her own ring, so I decided the best way forward was to research and buy the diamond (which suited my techie nature), and proposed to her with the loose stone in the ring box.

We then made an appointment to get the ring designed by a Jeweller whose work she loved.

I found this to be relatively good value as you're not paying high-street prices for the stone. The design cost (in 18carat white gold) was around £1000, but the appraised insurance value for the completed ring was over twice the total of stone and setting, so I think it worked out well.

The cost included a fitting of the incomplete ring which meant when we collected it, there was no annoying re-sizing (which is a problem even if you know your partners correct ring size).

Good luck!
 
You are ****** What difference does the symbol of ownership make ???
Just sling her 30 quid & tell her to go Asda, Hopefully your slack attitude will put her off & you can chalk this down to a close call. ;)











/removes tongue from cheek.
 
You should choose on your own.

I'll be asking my missus later this year and she'll not be choosing the ring.

I know what she would like and I dont think she would be too happy about me asking to choose her own.

Thats just my missus tho'.

EDIT:
robbiemc said:
snip
Click to expand...
Thats a really good idea, I might look into that myself.
 
malc30 said:
You are ****** What difference does the symbol of ownership make ???
Just sling her 30 quid & tell her to go Asda, Hopefully your slack attitude will put her off & you can chalk this down to a close call. ;)











/removes tongue from cheek.
Click to expand...

Glad to see romance isn't dead :p
 
recently done this, and if you think you have pretty good taste, i say buy it from a store which will allow CASH refunds for returns.

This way you have a chance at being romantic, and getting it right, with the get out of jail free card of letting her have a final choice.

What i actually did was saw 2 i liked in different stores, one store would let me return the other wouldnt so i bought the one that would, she loved it! But, it was gonna take ages to get a new one in her size (they dont just alter the size of the one i bought) so as we decided to get married 6 months later, i said "Come look at the other one i nearly bought" she did, and we both agreed in retrospect it was a better stone.

These guys above have bought stones online, which is great i guess, but for us it w\s how this stone sparkled that was the clincher for us, and it would always look better in the flesh, under different lights than online - so i'd say get shopping in specialist shops (avoid Argos, Samuals etc!).

Also, regarding the price, the ring should last her a lifetime, dont scrimp. She'll feel like its a little wasteful externally, but be all gooey inside!

Good luck! Also think (and budget) for where/how you'll do it! I rented a private capsule on the London Eye for just us two, with champagne and truffles. Went down a storm, but cost a wee bit - well worth when all said and done though - just the wedding to pay for (you thought engagements was expensive!)
 
That's a fair point about buying online, although the company we used (based in the US, as she is) offered 30-day no-quibble refund if you didn't like the stone which was a clincher, if they didn't have that I think we would have gone down the retail route :)
 
I took my wife-to-be with me, and we purchased it together. We chose the diamond, and saw it being set which was cool. That's the only way to do it if you fancy some romance. We did all this in New York, where I proposed. I did really well because the same style of ring in the UK costs significantly more.
 
I asked the Mrs to marry me and then we chose the ring. Actually, at the time I couldn't actually afford what she wanted, so she paid for some of it

As has already been mentioned, she's got to wear it for the restor her life so you should make sure that is something she will like; letting her choose is the best way to make sure.
 
Let her choose - she is going to wear it for the rest of her life. Besides girls like nothing more than looking at sparkley things and then spending your hard earned money on it :D

We did as Robbiemc.

We used an online company to buy the stone called Blue Nile http://www.bluenile.co.uk/
It was considerably cheaper than buying it here. I gave her a wooden ring in Italy when I proposed and then we designed the ring together and got it made by a jeweler in Hatton Garden. The end valuation was twice what we paid for it.

This was the end result: It's a 1.01 Carat F colour VVS1 stone with .5 carats of smaller diamonds on the sides mounted in platinum.
Ring-1.jpg
 
wow, even I think that looks amazing and I'm a bloke lol

I like the idea of the wooden ring for the proposal, and then buying the actual ring together later. I want to propose when we're on holiday in France in early July and so timing on buying the ring is an issue.
 
Propose and then go together to buy the ring. This way she gets the excitement of the proposal and also the excitement of ring shopping as well, not to mention something she's definitely happy with.
 
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