Pre-marriage advice: "don’t fall into the diamond pit"

Advice to prospective grooms … good luck with that!

We have diamond ring 2.0:

• 1st diamond was ⅓ carat. It really wasn’t that expensive. I just checked BlueNile and one can buy a ⅓ carat diamond for about $ 400 (sans ring)
• 2nd diamond was on the occasion of our 25th anniversary. We also happened to re-fi our house at the same time. I used re-fi transaction to buy my wife a much nicer diamond and a new ring. 2nd diamond is ⅔ carat. Checking BlueNile, one can buy a ⅔ carat diamond for about $ 1500. We traded in the old.

i recently told Vitaliy we had skipped this tradition …

Response to Anne

The point of my post before yours is that it doesn’t have to be a $ 3500 decision. Some (marketing person) came up with the idea that the groom should spend 3 X his monthly salary on a ring. I’d be more impressed if the groom had a 3 month emergency fund! (Google search: “how much should i spend on a diamond engagement ring”)

In the US culture or tradition, few brides do not have a diamond engagement ring.

agree.

it’s funny how God makes it all match up. I really dislike wearing rings at all, I have a hard time keeping my wedding ring on sometimes. So I was just as happy not mentioning our tradition to vitaliy.

after reading that Anne (of Green Gables) was given a pearl engagement ring by Gilbert, I realized that I do actually like the soft roundness of pearls better than diamonds personally. So I would have voted for that, if I had had the option.