Engagement Ring Buying Advice

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Damn $300-$350?! That's it?! Your wife is a real one.

My GF showed me a damn ring for $6K and I laughed at her. Now I'm wondering if I'm being cheap

Wtf $300 - 1,000.

During thanksgiving, a convo amongst 8 - 12 girls in our group were laughing at the rings that the guys wanted to buy that were around $3 - 8K for mostly lab or smaller real. Had a debate between boys vs girl math that $3-8K labs were better than real at $13 - 25K. I speculate inflation takes into consideration though. $8K ring today is probably nowhere close to a $4K ring in 2013. I rather buy her a Miata before a $5K ring lol.

Out of all the 27 year olds girls, I know that got married so far
- $6K Lab - SWE
- $8K Lab - Plumber
- $40K Real - Doctor older dude
- $10K Real - Government admin clerk but lives in AB
- $5K lab - > Upgraded to $40K once the dude 10x his income

Friend is proposing tmr, I'll ask him how much it is when he's back.

[6793026]

1.32ct vvs1 E for lab grown is now at 7-8k CDN let alone a diamond

[mikemhg]

This is all good info, the ring she showed me was lab made (obviously).

I would never even consider buying earth mined, regardless. Would leave a woman happily that would demand that.

Fuck out of here if you think I'm paying thousands of dollars for a mineral mined out by an African brethren making pennies on the dollar

[underscore]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Damn $300-$350?! That's it?! Your wife is a real one.

My GF showed me a damn ring for $6K and I laughed at her. Now I'm wondering if I'm being cheap

That's what happens when you're marrying an accountant lol.

I would've been fine spending more but traditional engagement rings aren't her style. I looked at a bunch of rings at a bunch of stores and the only one I found that I knew she'd like ended up being a normal ring that wasn't too expensive.

[Gerbs]

What throws me off is the female nature and attitude towards the ring and weddings. If the relationship is solid and the future looks bright. I don't understand how the ring + wedding can shatter the women's view/opinion on their partner especially amongst their female social circle. Causes a lot of friction when there's compromises and imo that's a red flag and you should GTFO and run from engagement.


Boy math in me will pay the $5-15K for the ring to not worry/stress about it. Pay to win lol

[Traum]

As with so many other things, society has romanticized (and commercialized) the notion of weddings and the associated stuff far too much, to the point that it became the end instead of the means or the on-going journey that will continually require work (to keep the relationship going and functional). But alas, we don't just do this with weddings. Even with cars, performance get romanticized to the point where having them becomes the end goal in and of itself, when the majority of car owners only tap into a fraction of that "performance" while straight line accelerating on the street.

From an (evolutionary) psychology's POV, women requiring commitment from their partner is part of their biological programming. Back in the caveman days, having a kid + child rearing means women won't be able to go hunt / scavenge / gather food, so commitment from men became essential to support the women as well as the offspring. In modern times, the animal instinct doesn't go away, but commitment morphed into that rock & ring, plus home ownership.

Back in my late 20's to early 30's, I know a few girls that were super fixated on finding a guy just so that they can have their dream wedding. I knew a Mainland Chinese girl in her late 20's at the time, and she married a guy she had no love for just bcos she was already way late on getting married by (Mainland) Chinese standards. I was never certain whether she did it just to appease her parents, to conform to her view of "societal norm", or whether there was some other reason, but it was whacked.

Originally Posted by Gerbs

What throws me off is the female nature and attitude towards the ring and weddings. If the relationship is solid and the future looks bright. I don't understand how the ring + wedding can shatter the women's view/opinion on their partner especially amongst their female social circle. Causes a lot of friction when there's compromises and imo that's a red flag and you should GTFO and run from engagement.

Boy math in me will pay the $5-15K for the ring to not worry/stress about it. Pay to win lol

[RabidRat]

Generalizing, I think women skew a little more sensitive to societal perception, and tend to be more judgmental and nosy amongst their circles. Can't blame them that that's how it is for them and they can't do anything about it.

Lucked out that my wife's circle of friends leans toward practical and even has one close MD friend she looks up to, who had insisted on getting a lab grown sapphire from her fiance for her engagement ring. That set us up for full freedom to go either lab or mined at a responsible price. Except her freaking mom came out of no where with random comments like "oh I'd be SO embarrassed if I had any lab grown anything. I was told by a jeweler that they won't even do adjustments on a ring if it has a dirty fake diamond in it because it could just shatter and that's a liability." Fml so in the end, my wife couldn't defy her meddling mom.

At least we were able to source a probably-not-blood diamond from a Canadian mine.

[mikemhg]

Her mom sounds like a dumb bitch. That's not even true.

Places like Spence Diamonds sells lab grown, they'll do whatever alterations are needed at anytime.

[Vansterdam]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Damn $300-$350?! That's it?! Your wife is a real one.

My GF showed me a damn ring for $6K and I laughed at her. Now I'm wondering if I'm being cheap

happy wife = happy life

If you do your research, could probably find a very similar/better ring for cheaper... esp if its custom made local/Canada.

tons of info located in this thread. https://forums.redflagdeals.com/have...thing-1367216/

I proposed back in March and were getting married in February

[68style]

Way back when I got married before I spent $7,500 on a 1 ct diamond... frickin thing looked tiny compared to the rocks I see most girls getting nowadays and just form a societal pressure standpoint if I were to do that again, I would feel pretty sheepish about it. Used to be that 1 ct was the standard now it's just barely passable?? Also I think 1 ct costs a lot more than $7,500 in today money.

It's mental out there. Bros need to stick together and fight back against these ungodly demands.

[badgerx3]

Originally Posted by k3mps

Bump.

Anyone have experience with Pure Diamond in DT Van?
I have an appointment with him on Thursday as he's got a 20% promo and his diamond prices are very impressive.

Thanks

If his name is Alexei (sp?), I went with him back in late 2019/early 2020. Overall, the experience was very good he did mined and lab diamonds. Also, he does custom designs, which my wife did with him on the spot.

At that time we ended up with a lab grown 1.89ct for all-in for ~12k CAD.

We wanted to get our wedding bands with him too but he replied super late, we thought he ghosted us. Ended up going elsewhere.

DM me if you want more details.

[Razor Ramon HG]

Anyone have experience buying a loose diamond themselves and finding someone to create the setting? Interested in doing that myself.

Loose diamonds seem to be significantly cheaper online, but don't know anyone that do the setting creation and placement.

[Badhobz]

Asian jewelry stores can do that. Like the ones in Aberdeen. How much I don’t know.

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by RabidRat

Generalizing, I think women skew a little more sensitive to societal perception, and tend to be more judgmental and nosy amongst their circles. Can't blame them that that's how it is for them and they can't do anything about it.

Lucked out that my wife's circle of friends leans toward practical and even has one close MD friend she looks up to, who had insisted on getting a lab grown sapphire from her fiance for her engagement ring. That set us up for full freedom to go either lab or mined at a responsible price. Except her freaking mom came out of no where with random comments like "oh I'd be SO embarrassed if I had any lab grown anything. I was told by a jeweler that they won't even do adjustments on a ring if it has a dirty fake diamond in it because it could just shatter and that's a liability." Fml so in the end, my wife couldn't defy her meddling mom.

At least we were able to source a probably-not-blood diamond from a Canadian mine.

Pssshhh if it doesn’t have blood on it, it doesn’t have value. (Not that regular diamonds have much value in the first place, but at least their resale isn’t completely in the toilet like lab grown anything is).

If you’re gonna buy anything you better buy something that has some oppression / suffering embodied in it or else you might as well throw your money into the garbage.

[Mikoyan]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon HG

Anyone have experience buying a loose diamond themselves and finding someone to create the setting? Interested in doing that myself.

Loose diamonds seem to be significantly cheaper online, but don't know anyone that do the setting creation and placement.

I did this for my wife's ring, but my cousins good friend was an independent jewelry designer, so she sourced the diamond and hooked me up with the ring maker.

The larger independent jewelers should be able to be able to do custom settings for you. But I have no idea of the current costs. It's been about 15 years since I had my ring made.

Be careful of the cut/dimensions of the cheaper diamonds I was told. The really nice cut ones usually get snapped up by designers/stores etc.

[RabidRat]

We actually had my wedding band custom made because I couldn't find anything good off the shelf.

Surprisingly, the cost of one with hand crafted artisan work - at a local goldsmith in friggin Palo Alto, no less - was comparable to buying something off the shelf through mainstream retail. Shows you how much markup there is.

Downside was that they couldn't do any modern materials, so tungsten carbide was out.

But the upside was that they could craft whatever the heck you wanted. My ring is external-facing platinum that they coarse-grit ground, down to a rough matte. With an inner rose gold band they fused to the inner side. With a laser-etched replica of the pattern on my wife's ring on the inner face. So conceptually, her ring flipped inside out.

[6793026]

go and find an actual person who makes the ring.

We went right to the source - we went right to the guy at the office, he has all the machines so it was super legit. (Toronto).

He also said he couldn't tell the difference between lab diamond versus real one.

He did all the sizing and cleaning when while we wait.