Custom Engagement Ring?
Q.My wife and I have our 5 year anniversary next March, geez is it already 5 years? Anyways, when we got engaged / married we were young and broke, and her engagement ring that we bought was rather simple. It is a white gold ring with a small diamond. It doesn't even stick out or anything. I think I paid $400 for it. I do like the classic engagement rings with one large diamond sticking out. And maybe 1 smaller one on each side. I think the engagement ring is definitely going to knock her off her feet more, but isn't it weird to get one now after being married? What are the rules here? My budget is around $2,000, so I am sure I can find something nice that will make her stay with me for another 5 years at least. What do you think?
A.I think you have to be very cautious in assuming what your wife wants, especially when it comes to spending $2,000 in joint funds. So, here are a few things to consider: (a) it doesn't really matter what style of ring you like, does it? It matters what she likes, eh? (b) does she wear her current engagement ring all the time? do you think she will be bothered by replacing it with a different ring? Women can be weirdly sentimental about things. A 5-year anniversary is an important milestone, to be sure. But anniversaries come around every year, and nice round ones recur every 5 years. It just may not have the same emotional weight in her mind as "the day he proposed"...which if the two of you are lucky, will be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If she's a strongly sentimental person who places more value in memories than in monetary worth, asking her to replace her dollarwise inexpensive but symbolically priceless engagement ring may not work for her (c) If she's a person who values experiences over things, she may prefer the money be spent on a special anniversary trip or something. (d) In terms of what's going to generate positive feelings in your marriage through the next 5 years, there's solid research that says gifts--even big ones--only work for a limited amount of time in producing positive feelings. Even if you spend thousands of dollars on something, it will only give the receiver a major boost for a few days, and a residual trail of gratitude for a few weeks. In the emotional economy of gift-giving, it's a much wiser investment to give a $10 gift once a week than to give than to give a $500 gift once a year, or a $5,000 gift every 5 years. I'm not much of a jewelry person myself, but when we were talking about these things in the leadup to getting engaged, we decided to go with a custom ring. I must say, working with the jewelry designer to craft this gorgeous, unique piece was one of the highlights of my life. You might want to look into that route. You could still work it in as a surprise (by planning a surprise trip to the jeweler into your anniversary getaway, for example). She would then have the option to choose big stone/simple setting, smaller stone/fancier setting, reusing the original gem into a multi-stone ring, or maybe not even a different piece of jewelry altogether! Just as an FYI, when my wife and I went to pick out her engagement ring (yes we went together) we got the ring she wanted (and I admire as she has better taste than me) and when we started looking wedding bands the jeweler talked us out of it. He claimed the custom of an engagement ring and a wedding band was a fairly recent custom and begged us to use the beautiful engagement ring as her wedding ring also. So we did as he suggested.
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