Does Carat Matter?

[marcy]

It is all personal preference. I don''t like things larger than a carat. By PS stands I am sure mine are tiny.

 

[AprilBaby]

Your ring choice sounds lovely! Post pictures after she says yes!

 

[TooPatient]

Date: 9/14/2009 4:51:45 PM
Author: LaurenThePartier

Date: 9/1/2009 10:27:19 AM
Author: Titan35

Date: 8/31/2009 10:17:29 PM
Author: Kaleigh
To the OP:


What does your GF want?? What can you afford?? What do her friends wear?? Answer those questions and you have your answer. Asking us, is fine... But then we don''t really know all the particulars... Best of luck!!

I plan to surprise her really. So I don''t think she''s very particular in what she wants. Of all this time I''ve been dating her, she''s never really demanded anything. But I''d like to make this special for her. I don''t plan to ask her because I don''t want to ruin the surprise. I''ve consider in getting a $4,000 dollar ring. Perhaps too much? or too little? My GF and her friends are my age. I''ve graduated out of college about 3 years ago, and I''m working now. I''m not at the top of the salary range and I''m about to enter grad school. I have college debts! So perhaps this may give you an idea of my salary range. I''ve heard from some girls that you buy a ring according to your monthly salary times 3. But I''ve spoken to some guy friends who are married, and that is not necessarily the case. I intend to buy something that will take me a long time to pay back. Is this a wrong mentality?

You''ve gotten a load of good advice about size/cut/cost, but I''ve helped plenty of male friends buy engagement rings, and without a clue as to what she likes, you''re potentially setting yourself up for a situation where she may not like what you''ve picked, but is so over the moon happy with your proposal that she may be afraid to say anything to hurt your feelings. There are a large number of examples of this happening just on Pricescope.

I''ll never understand why men think shopping for an engagement ring is giving away any surprise. Surely you''ve talked about getting married, so it''s no surprise that you want to spend the rest of your lives together. You own the timetable - buying the ring, choosing the location and the timing - so the only way you''d spoil any surprise is if you become very obvious about it.

Just walk through a local jeweler under the guise of finding some pearl or gemstone earrings for her/your Mom, and naturally, she will have separated off from you to go browse the engagement rings. Meet back up with her, and for fun, ask an SA to take a few out and pay close attention to her reaction to them.

Good luck!!!

I agree.

I''d love to be surprised with a ring that B had picked out for me. But I know what I want. No matter what he got, I''d love it and be happy. I''d just have part of me always sad that it wasn''t just what I had been dreaming of for so many years.

 

[hihowareyou]

On the subject of cost as a girl who recently is engaged and have been effected by the GFC in the last year quite a lot (financial situation not the best right now) I can say that I'm very happy that we went for an under 1ct stone. Technically we could have afforded to spend more without going into debt but given employment opportunities are rough and job security is low for us both at the moment we decided to keep that money for a 'rainy day'.

Our ring reflects where we were in our relationship when we became engaged and it is completely honest. I would much rather be engaged today with my ring than waiting a few years and having the 2ct "whopper" or emptying our savings on a ring or going into debt and having to deal with that later. You can do amazing things with a small budget with the help of PS. The important thing is the commitment and the ring tells a story. For me it represents what we could afford when I returned to study to follow my dreams and my FH was made redundant due to the financial crisis. I hope that I can pass it down to my kids and they can appreciate the time and effort that we went through to get the best that our money could buy given the times

Over here in Australia in my age group and circle over 0.5ct is large but diamonds also retail for more here and I think there is less pressure to meet the 1ct mark like there is in the US. I know a few older women that my partner worked with who earn very large sums of money were impressed about a 3/4ct when he told them what he was getting me.

 

[Titan35]

Date: 9/1/2009 2:15:44 PM
Author: princesss
Personally, I''ll take cut over anything else ANY day.


But I''m a PS-educated weirdo when compared to the vast majority of women. A friend of mine bought a ring for his GF, and no matter how many times I tried to teach him about cut, *her* priority was carat, so that''s what he focused on. She wanted 2 carats, so he did the best he could on that (though he did tell me that the GIA - EX blew the ring he bought out of the water - his solution was to just not show her those until he could afford one). So the priority of each woman is different, and some would sacrifice cut for a bigger stone (just not anybody that knew better,

).


But I do think the majority of PSers would say whatever you prioritize, set the 5th C (Cost!) first, and work from there. In an ideal world we wouldn''t have to factor that in, but this is the real world and most of us have budgets. So for me, the priority would be this:


Cost - Cut - Carat - Colour/Clarity


None of the rest of the Cs matter if you''re going into debt for the ring. The same friend who bought as close to two carats as he could is still paying the ring off, and his then-FI/now-ex broke off the engagement months ago.

Did she ever return the ring?

 

[Titan35]

Date: 9/1/2009 1:10:59 PM
Author: kittybean

Date: 9/1/2009 10:27:19 AM

Author: Titan35

Date: 8/31/2009 10:17:29 PM

Author: Kaleigh

To the OP:



What does your GF want?? What can you afford?? What do her friends wear?? Answer those questions and you have your answer. Asking us, is fine... But then we don''t really know all the particulars... Best of luck!!

I plan to surprise her really. So I don''t think she''s very particular in what she wants. Of all this time I''ve been dating her, she''s never really demanded anything. But I''d like to make this special for her. I don''t plan to ask her because I don''t want to ruin the surprise. I''ve consider in getting a $4,000 dollar ring. Perhaps too much? or too little? My GF and her friends are my age. I''ve graduated out of college about 3 years ago, and I''m working now. I''m not at the top of the salary range and I''m about to enter grad school. I have college debts! So perhaps this may give you an idea of my salary range. I''ve heard from some girls that you buy a ring according to your monthly salary times 3. But I''ve spoken to some guy friends who are married, and that is not necessarily the case. I intend to buy something that will take me a long time to pay back. Is this a wrong mentality?

In my opinion, yes. Based on the current state of the economy, your college debts, and your soon-to-be-student status, I think buying an engagement ring that will take a long time to pay back is a bad idea. On this forum, you will almost always hear that you should only spend on jewelry what you can pay in cash (or put on a credit card to be paid off immediately). Taking on debt for an engagement ring is unnecessary and unwise, I think, given your financial situation.


Why don''t you go for something a little more modest, with the promise that you will upgrade if she so wishes when your finances are more stable? Let her know that you are serious about marrying her, but that you want to be responsible and not incur additional debts as you prepare for marriage.


Lastly, I would encourage you to do at least a little reconnaissance work regarding her interests. You said above that ''[You want to surprise her. So I don''t think she''s very particular in what she wants.'' How can you know she''s not very particular if you''ve never brought up the topic at all? Have you spoken with her family or friends to see what she likes? The idea that she''s not very particular does not logically follow from the fact that you want to surprise her (I''m assuming this is what you meant since you used the word ''so;'' I apologize if that''s not the case). If I were you, I would try to take some more time to learn what kind of jewelry she might like, if you haven''t done that already.


Best of luck with your proposal!

Thanks Kittybean! That was a powerful message, and I listened. So I bought her the ring back in September. I paid it full in cash, well with a credit card, but I had the cash for it. Even though it was expensive, I''m so glad for being ring-debt-free.

Thanks for the VERY wise tips. I don''t what I was thinking!

 

[princesss]

She did give it back, but it was already past the return period and sadly you don''t get anywhere near what you spent on a ring when you try to re-sell it. I don''t know what he did with it, but it sucks that he''s still paying off the ring.

I''m happy to hear you paid in cash, and that it feels good to not have ring-debt.

I can''t wait to see hand shots when you ask her!

 

[Titan35]

She said YES!!!!!!!

Ok, well I ended up taking her to Austin and proposed to her there. I initially planned to take her to Zilker Park after dinner at the Oasis. We had dinner near the edge of a hill overlooking Lake Travis while watching the sunset. I didn''t say anything romantic over dinner because I was too afraid to give away a clue. So before dinner ended, I had some friends who went ahead to the proposal spot to light up the candles. The spot was on a bridge over Barton Creek. It turned out that it was dark and no street lights in the area. They said that it seemed unsafe. What to do?! Remembering that we had a balcony at the hotel, so I quickly made plans to changed venue. I told my friends to just meet up at the hotel later. By the way, this communication was all done through text messages. I was texting a few times during dinner, and I think it got to a point that she was a little annoyed. She knows that my friends were in town with us, so I just told her that they were texting us that they were leaving dinner and they wanted to hang out afterwards. She didn''t suspect....I asked after the fact!

So when we went back to the hotel, our friends came up to our room to hang out a bit. It was a guy and a girl. So the girl asked my fiancee if she wanted to grab some coffee while Jon was going to show me some stuff on his laptop. She agreed, and while they were gone, it gave us a good 30 minutes to setup the candles in the balcony. We lit a hundred candles, for 100 years of happiness and love. I would have done 1000 if I could, but I didn''t. So we left the balcony door open, but we closed the curtains so she wouldn''t see. In the mean time, my friend took her around looking for starbucks. Good thing, they didn''t come across any (purposedly)! So this is what the Balcony looks like after the setup.

When they finally came back, my friends excused themselves, blaming that they were tired. So keep in mind that the curtains were still closed. She can''t see any candles. She said that she wanted to call it a night, but I told her to check out the view of Austin downtown in the porch before heading to bed. I said that it was a beautiful view from where we were at. So we stepped out, and as soon as she moved the curtains, she was absolutely in awed. She didn''t suspect still, because the whole trip was for our 2nd year anniversary. She just thought I did something romantic for the occasion. So I showed her a view of downtown, then I held her hand, looked into eyes and said a few special words. Finally I got on my knee, and asked, if she would spend the rest of her life with me. She was in tears, but happy tears. She said yes. So I slid the ring on her finger, and she hugged me tight. Good thing I wasn''t on the boat, other wise, it could have been a little rocky.

Well, that''s my story, and I thank everyone on pricescope for their inputs and suggestions for the proposal. i''m an engaged man now, and I''m so happy in moving on forward.

Here is a picture of The Ring

 

[kenny]

Congratulations!

 

[that_someone_special]

awww that''s too sweet! congrats!

 

[ndpwood]

Congratulations!!!

 

[yssie]

I can''t stop smiling!

What a sweet, perfect proposal

and the ring is just gorgeous!!


Wishing you all those hundred years of happiness together - and show us some hand pics!

 

[HVVS]

I talked to a jewelry rep the day before yesterday. In his territory, Northern mid and NE Ohio & a sliver of western PA, the average engagement ring is now .5ct to .75ct, down from 1ct in 2008, with more buyers opting for I/J colors and the SI clarities. He said there's also an interest in 1.5ct stones for anniversary and other "upgrades" or possibly engagements by older buyers who have the cash. Financing for e-rings is much more difficult to get and the interest rates are high now.

Oh ,I just read to the end of this thread, and noted the date on the original post. Congratulations! And it's a beautiful ring.