Ladies: Engagement Rings!

[Cadaver]

I don't know how I would react to being proposed to by my significant other...

 

M.

Heh, my wife and I dated for ten years, getting things straight first. (paying off credit cards and vehicles, getting a place to live, finishing school)

She then set a date we were going to be married and told me to be there.

Technically, I never asked her to marry me.

[vutpakdi]

ps. I guess my advice is to pick it out together. I can't imagine buying a ring and asking someone to make such a life-changing decision without giving her some advance warning and talking about it before hand.

 

That's the approach that I took. Meant that I didn't have a ring to present when I asked my wife to marry me, but she said yes anyway (didn't need that +2 per half carat roll modifier), and she got to pick out a ring that really suited her. She chose a ring that has 3 relatively small, but very clear diamonds that sparkle very well, but won't get in the way.

 

Ron

 

PS: I would have been fine if she had asked me.

[M. Eversberg II]

I don't know how I would react to being proposed to by my significant other...

 

M.

Heh, my wife and I dated for ten years, getting things straight first. (paying off credit cards and vehicles, getting a place to live, finishing school)

She then set a date we were going to be married and told me to be there.

Technically, I never asked her to marry me.

 

Eh you where married long before that day, you just didn't know it.

 

M.

[fieldarchy]

I don't know how I would react to being proposed to by my significant other...

 

M.

Heh, my wife and I dated for ten years, getting things straight first. (paying off credit cards and vehicles, getting a place to live, finishing school)

She then set a date we were going to be married and told me to be there.

Technically, I never asked her to marry me.

 

 

hehe, that sounds like something I would do . . . I'd be good with that. Not sure I'd want a huge production. Just being asked by the right person would be enough for me.

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

My wife waited for me to ask her. Although she was so sure I was eventually going to that she had already bought her wedding dress.

[Orsino]

My wife and I started talking about marriage before we actually met (via match.com, twelve years ago). On our first date, we sort of agreed to marry, so there was no formal proposal.

 

We picked out non-matching rings at the local RenFest, then each had the other's engraved. No diamonds--or any other stones, for that matter--as non-Canadian stones might have cruelty issues. We're not much into gems, anyway.

[kit]

Heidi got a lovely setting with her birthstone - aquamarine. It's exactly what she wanted. That and as we understand it, before the Victorian era, traditional wedding gems were the birthstone. Silly Victorians. Oh, and we used the money we saved to pay off some pre-marriage debt we had accrued separately.

 

 

Sorry if this is repeat advice: I'm simply jumping in at the end of the discussion. Anyway, according to Heidi, it's best to not surprise your fiancee to be. Let her have some input and you'll both be happier.

[bleujenna]

John gave me a rare color change sapphire. It's blue green and I just love it. It's set in a band of knot work. I had no idea he was proposing, and he designed the ring. I was so flattered he designed something just for me, and put so much thought into it- it makes the ring even more special to me!

[Enchantra]

John gave me a rare color change sapphire. It's blue green and I just love it. It's set in a band of knot work. I had no idea he was proposing, and he designed the ring. I was so flattered he designed something just for me, and put so much thought into it- it makes the ring even more special to me!

 

That sounds absolutely gorgeous! Now where's the drooling smiley when you want it?

 

And the element of surprise...Isn't it wonderful?

[fieldarchy]

I think I would want to be surprised about the moment, not necessarily the ring. The S.O should have some idea of your taste and what you want. It should be discussed to a certain extent, though I would think that by the time of proposal the S.O. should know your taste fairly well.

 

Being surprised about when the proposal is going to happen I think is very sweet and romantic. And it doesn't need to be anything extravagent. My friends Tara and Cameron got married last year. He proposed to her in a very sweet way. It was just an average evening. They had been home, spending some time together, you know nothing out of the ordinary. He says, "Well, it's getting late. I need to go to bed so I can be up for work in the morning. Come to bed whenever you're ready." He turns to walk out of the room then says, "Oh yeah, will you marry me" I think that's sweet. Nothing out of the ordinary really, she's not expecting it at that moment . . . has an element of surprise.

[Almathea Toes]

Well I have no new advice, but gosh. I want an engagement ring. I want it to be relatively expensive. My reason, I've already recieved a ring worth a hundred something dollars as a christmas gift. If He's working he regularly slots a section of his disposable income to buy me something nice (uaually not jewelry). (Though I've been to known to spontaneously do the happy clap when looking at my shinies) That month I buy the minis, or anime, or whatever. I want my engagement ring to be a bit special. We've been together 8 years, I'd like to think he's not just dong it because I'm here, and yes a diamond or sapphire or alexandrite (love that colour change) picked out by him, (after lots of suggestions examples and advice) would make me extremely happy, and sure of that. There's effort involved. I'm not going to say no if I don't get a ring, I'll probably just squeal more if I get one. So, I have psychological hang-ups about feeling apprieciated. It's not that I need an expensive ring, it's that I know myself well enough to know that I would like one, because often more expensive rings are nicer shinies.

 

Oh, and anything above 2,000 is stupid unless you can really, really afford it. Oh, and second hand would be fine by me. So call me shallow, call me horrible, call me someone who has seriously considered collecting gemstones as an occasional hobby. I already have a large collection of semi precious, spectacular fossils, and giant chunks of boulder opal, jade etc.

 

I also really really love rings, and currently wear four,(yep he gave me them all) they're all silver (even the expensive one, very very nice large topaz in a setting by a quebec jeweler) . One of them he wears a matching one on a cord It's enscribed with a verse in latin. They were poesy rings. Urg, sorry I love my jewelry a lot, even my two twenty dollar silver knotwork rings. And no I won't be taking any of them off if I get two more, things will just be rearranged. I look at and appreciate them all every day.

 

Canadian diamonds have a polar bear engaved in the center of them. I believe it's only visible under a jeweler's eyepiece.

[Chastity]

I just recently got engaged, and even though I told my guy that I didn't want a diamond, he still got me one.

I had wanted a red stone ("whatever is cheapest" was my criteria), but he did some research into stones other than diamonds, and found that even though they're all 'off the charts' in regards to hardness, they supposedly have to be polished every 5 years if you want them to stay as sparkly (which I can kind of see, because my mom's emerald is incredibly dull and I remember it was super shiny when she got it).

Anyways, he picked it out himself and went with a Polar Diamond (Canadian mined and cut, and yes it has the polar bear) - even though I didn't want a diamond, and will probably never own another piece of jewelry with a diamond in it, I'm very happy with the ring, because it was a gift from him.

 

As for picking it out ... I really like that he picked it out himself, because it makes it just that much more of a personal heartfelt gift.

I think if I had helped pick it out, it wouldn't mean as much.

 

I agree with fieldarchy about a simple proposal.

He picked me up from work one night, we got to his house, chatted for a bit, then he got up (to get the ring, we had been sitting on the floor in the middle of his livingroom) and got down on one knee.

Later, he told me that he had wanted to propose a year ago - we were supposed to be going to Peru, and he wanted to propose at Machu Picchu, because he had gone there before and it meant a lot to him - but we didn't end up going.

Honestly, I'm not disappointed - it would have made for a romantic story for it to happen that way, but that's about it. The way he did it was just as special, because the end result is the same: we're getting married.

[Ayin]

My husband and I had known that we were going to get married for some time before he proposed. He would have been fine without the proposal, but I still wanted one (even though there was no doubt that I would say yes, and he knew it. Just a bit old fashioned that way.) So here I was waiting for the question (at least a year went by), and it seemed like it was never going to come. One day, after I got back from visiting a mutual close friend, we were having a very emotional, heartfelt bonding time. Towards the end of the conversation, I said "so are you ever going to ask me to marry you? You know I'll say yes." And he said that he wanted it to be a very special "perfect time" thing, and he just hadn't figured it out yet. Then jokingly added "Like now. Now would not be a good time, because you're all emotional, and crying, and stuff,"(it was a good kind of crying) and I laughed and replied "now would be a perfect time!" So he got all serious and asked me while holding me in his arms. And I started crying again as I said yes.

 

And then we went ring shopping!

[Rastl]

Back on topic and I may have said this before, but the engagement ring is something that both parties should be involved with when it comes to deciding what it is.

 

She is going to be wearing it for a very long time so it has to suit both her style and her personality.

 

He is going to be looking at it for a very long time so it needs to be something he can reflect back on with pride and happiness.

 

As with pretty darn near everything in a relationship it should be a joint decision. Forget what the marketing campaigns are telling you. If you both like it then it is just right.

[kristof65]

I have to respectfully disagree with you Rastl. More important is knowing your SO.

 

For example, for my ex-wife, in the two years we dated prior to me asking her, I was never able to give her a gift that she absolutely loved. It didn't matter how well I researched it, and compared to her tastes, or notes I took about her comments, she very rarely liked my gifts to her. That should have been a HUGE clue to ask her without a ring, and then pick it out together. And that pattern continued through out our marriage.

 

My current wife, however, I was hesitant about picking out her ring without her input. Especially because on the surface she's more picky about her jewelry (has to be at least 14k, no synthetic stones, etc.). I knew what she said she wanted, but based on my experience with my ex-wife, I wasn't so sure that what she said and what she wanted were the same thing. Anyway, because I had a special place and time in mind, and I wanted to surprise her, I got exactly what she said she wanted - a simple band with a princess cut diamond - figuring that we would be back in to pick out a different setting for the diamond.

 

She's still wearing that ring I expected to exchange. And every now and then, just out of the blue, she'll comment to me that she loves it, and that it's very special to her.

 

Overall, though, I've found that she's a very different gift recepient than my ex. She appreciates any gift from me that I've put any thought into. Which, for me, acts as a positive reinforcement to spend even more time searching for the perfect gift for her.

 

So the first thing any guy considering proposing should ask themselves is probably not what kind of ring should I get her, or what does she like, but what's my track record with her so far for gifts? If you're absolutely sure you've been 100% spot on with your previous gifts to her, and you know her tastes well enough, you can probably pick out her ring yourself. If you've had any trouble giving her gifts before, then you should get her input.