Did you help pick out your engagement ring?

[Rapunzel]

I don't have a big, delicious engagement rings.
We were poor students when we got engaged and couldn't afford to buy any kind of jewelry.

Same here...at my wedding, many of our US guests were pretty surprised...but...it is where we were in our lives then and I wouldn't want a diff. engagement ring.

We picked them together too.

Same here as well. We married in undergrad (both of us were full-time students and he had a part-time job as a pizza delivery driver - makes me laugh when people say, "Oh, you married a doctor!" ).

No real engagement ring per se (at least nothing beyond a family heirloom his mom gave me when I kept getting asked out despite being engaged because I didn't have any visible clue as to my status).

We picked out our wedding rings - simple, gold bands - together. And, for gold, they were really cheaply priced.

I got a gorgeous platinum ring this last summer for our 10th wedding anniversary. He completely surprised me with it. And, it turns out he has good taste - definitely more expensive taste than I do!

[Rapunzel]

I don't have a big, delicious engagement rings.
We were poor students when we got engaged and couldn't afford to buy any kind of jewelry. We spent all our money on trips to visit each other. I have an engagement ring in mind that we'll get when we're done with residency, but for now I wear a band. The holiday party was quite embarrassing because you could feel the eyes looking for a big ring...

You know, the more I think about this (people's reactions to the "lack" of some monstrous ring) the more obnoxious it seems.

Why must people judge your relationship, your spouse, you yourself all on the size/price of a piece of metal and/or rock on your finger???

It's just ridiculous!

So, I say don't be embarrassed! Feel sorry that others are so shallow that they may judge you, your fiance, your entire relationship all on something so entirely worthless. In the end, what makes or breaks a relationship - what makes a marriage heaven or hell - has nothing to do with a piece of jewelry.

I just get so annoyed at how shallow and materialistic our entire society is nowdays. Those attitudes are the kind of crap that fuel these outrageously incorrect ideas of what it's like to be married to a physician (ESPECIALLY one in training). And, you know what? I've seen these attitudes from other residents and medical students as well.

OK, off my soapbox of righteous indignation.

[Rapunzel]

Yeah, you know it's one thing to get the ring as a gift or pick it out together as a couple (that qualifies as sweet - and, what wonderful memories it creates!). And, quite another to demand something - especially setting certain guidelines (such as it "has" to be a certain size or cost).

If one of my daughters ever pull some kind of crap like that (telling her fiance that he must spend a certain amount on a ring) I'm going to be incredibly embarrassed....

[alison]

I wouldn't give up my under $200 white gold band for the world--to me it'll be more valuable than the Jack Kelege ring I linked you guys to. Maybe it's just a phase and at some point I'll want a Cartier tank watch instead. Haha. Speaking of treating white gold bands, where in Seattle do you go, Flynn? I'll be there in July.

Or does anyone know of a place in Chicago? I'd like to have a shiny ring for my girlfriend's wedding... Her ring BTW was something like $15,000 and I was there when the armored car pulled up to her house to deliver it... If that was 15,000, I can't imagine what a 60,000 ring would look like.

[SueC]

My dh picked out my engagement ring, but he knew I liked a princess cut, and that is what I got! 8) It is rather unfortunate that my beautiful stone is probably laying in the grass or in a landfill somewhere.
I picked out my current ring, which is much more modest. I'm not a very flashy person, so my sterling silver band with a raised floral design suits me very well. Also, I kind of like not sporting a big 'ol rock for the aforementioned reasons. Some day, we will probably get me another ring with an actual diamond or two in it, but for now I think the band seems more practical. In that instance, I pretty much intend on picking it out, with perhaps a little input from dh.

Re: Did you help pick out your engagement ring?

Did you help pick your ring out or was it a surprise? Which do you prefer?

I helped pick mine out, and I'm glad that I did. I'm not really that much into diamonds but my husband wanted me to wear one. He was gung-ho for getting a full carat, but I've got very thin fingers and didn't want a huge diamond on it so I went with him. When he saw how out-of-proportion the larger diamonds looked on me, he understood why I wanted a smaller one. For me, this was done perfectly!

[pstone]

No way did she help. I picked it and it was a total surprise.

Very non-traditional however. Very modern bezel set oval diamond in white gold. Very latex glove friendly, nothing to get snagged, and ah...I did a great job.

[Phoebe]

Ours is kind of a funny story. We had been looking at engagement rings and one store had a drawing for a diamond ring in a very comtemporary setting. It was the last day of the drawing, the last piece of paper on the entry pad and DH won the drawing.

I had no idea he won. He proposed a couple days with the original having kept his prize a secret. Afterward, we picked out a different setting that we liked better. It looks exactly like the past, present and future settings that jewelers advertise. I got mine before it was a marketing point.

Ring taste is hard! i hope it works out for your sister, Annie.

Jennifer

DH & I went to a jewelers and browsed separately. We both told each other that we found one that we each really liked and it turned out it was the same ring. The proposal was still a surprise. DH chose a stone from a diamond wholesaler who mailed him 3 diamonds to choose from. DH chose one and mailed the other 2 back. On the day he proposed, the finished ring was Fed-Ex'd to our apartment but our landlady signed for the package because we weren't home. When I got home, I was too lazy to get the package from our landlady and told DH to get it when he got home. Good thing I was being a bum otherwise I would have opened the ring and ruined his surprise. It was definitely one of the best moments ever in my life.

Alison, me too. DH and I got engaged when we were starving students - - total shock to me, was not expecting the proposal. He picked the (quite modest) ring out himself. He had to put the ring on layaway and make payments for several months before he could bring the ring home and ask me to marry him. All those months I never knew.

This means more to me than any other piece of jewelry I own or ever will own. DH has made quite a few comments about other residents' rings and how mine is not large enough (around here there are many enormous rings - - one resident was mugged at gunpoint over hers). However, I have strictly forbidden him from ever replacing it. Its such a sweet memory for me that we met when we were just starting out - - and that he made those layaway payments for months waiting until he could propose.

This means more to me than any other piece of jewelry I own or ever will own. DH has made quite a few comments about other residents' rings and how mine is not large enough (around here there are many enormous rings - - one resident was mugged at gunpoint over hers). However, I have strictly forbidden him from ever replacing it.

I am the same way ... DH wants to eventually "replace" my ring with something "larger and more fancy" but I love the ring I was married with and will, even if I eventually want a different one, wear it forever.

[DCJenn]

Husband #1- we went together and picked everything out. I still love the stone and had it reset as the most fab necklace.

Husband #2- sent pics of what I liked and didn't and he picked and bought it and surprised me with the proposal. Much more fun, actually.

Jenn

[Amiens]

We went together and picked our rings. Dh still made it a surprise-- I had fallen in love with a particular ring, and it needed to be resized. Dh told me this and it would be a while before the jeweler could do this, and he wouldn't propose until at least the end of the semester- I was in undergrad, and he in med school. Well a week later he proposed out of the blue- well it was a surprise to me, he had planned it.

Here is a picture of mine. When we got married dh talked about getting a larger center stone when we hit 5 years- too much money, so he said at 10 years. We are approaching 10 years, and I don't want to. It's the stone he proposed with, and it has sentimental value. Engagement ring is a 1/3rd carat center round, with baguettes, and then my wedding band is 4 marquis that wrap around the center cut.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...att/myring.jpg

We went ring shopping and narrowed it down to 2 styles I liked. Then it was up to him to decide which one. I'm glad I got to go shopping and try on different styles, because I'm a huge comparison shopper. But in the end, my ring is what he would have picked out by himself anyway. So I enjoyed the experience, but apparently he didn't need my input!

[Auspicious]

Most of you have heard it before, but I picked mine out. My husband and I have very different taste in jewelry (was that diplomatic enough?) and he only cared that I liked what I got since I'd be looking at it every day. I wanted a very simple ring and had definite opinions about what kind of look I liked and didn't like for myself. Mine looks similar to a tension-set, but it's not.

I wasn't too keen on buying a diamond, so it worked out great that we had the stone reset from my late grandmother's ring that she wore for the duration of her 42-year marriage to my grandfather. I really love my ring and the old-and-new history of it.

We got the stone and took it to a jeweler here in Little Italy along with a picture off the internet of what I wanted, and the jeweler put it together from there. After we picked it up, my husband confiscated it and hid it for a few months before suprising me with an official proposal. It was fun.

My stone is .16 and at the advice of a friend with a similar-sized ring I braced myself for "the comments" but so far I haven't gotten a single one. Maybe once you pull out the word "grandmother" people shut their yaps.

Pic:
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b5 ... Yt2TZi3ctU