Engagement rings

I thought God created those? Sometime on Day 2 between Jesus and Dragons. It was about 4500 years ago when the Earth was still young.

There are some stars that die and leave behind a diamond the size of the earth as a white dwarf star.

http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/...hiteDwarf.html

I got fucked on buying the wedding ring for my wife. My future mother-in-law worked at a mall jeweler. So I could:
1. Overpay for the wedding ring and buy it from MIL.
2. Buy it somewhere else and have MIL pissed at me for the duration of the marriage.

I chose option #1.

Grand Inquisitor Kegkilla_sl said:

wait what? i never knew that, holy shit that's cool.

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All are welcome in the science threads, Kegbro.

I think what amuses me most about the passionate "diamonds are a waste of money" rants is that the discussion is by it's nature is almost always held as a prelude to marriage.

It's like yes, maybe you should have a colossal waste of money at the start. You need that inoculation shot.

Grand Inquisitor Kegkilla_sl said:

wait what? i never knew that, holy shit that's cool.

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yes, Darth Vader actually just wanted to take gold farming to a new level.

I feel like we've gotten off topic here.

Elurin_sl said:

Holy shit. I think we paid in the neighborhood of $600-700 for ours. The bulk of that was the reception where we took everyone out to eat and spent like $450. I want to say we had 14 people total.

I definitely recommend going small. Not only that, but my wife's family gave us $5,000 that they could've spent on the wedding.

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I broke even essentially and our wedding was small with 90ish people. I also live in New Jersey so things will be more expensive.

I just recently got engaged and bought a ring. I stressed a little about it because I wanted it to be something nice but not too cheap and I didn't want to go into debt for it. I picked a price range that I was comfortable with that I could pay outright for and shopped around. The 2 months salary figure I had heard as well, but found to be bullshit. Eventually I found one that was about $1600 that i felt was the perfect ring. I kept my eye on it and still shopped around but always came back to that one. I finally decided to buy it and noticed it was reduced price. I pulled the trigger and went to the store. Luckily, it was valentine's day weekend and they had a valentine's weekend sale, so I got it even cheaper. So i got a nice ring on the cheap. When i gave her the ring, so loved it and everyone she showed it to loved it and I got complements for doing a good job picking it out. She knew nothing about it and was so surprised and shocked, even if she knew it was coming eventually. So my point is, don't listen to the bullshit that people say. If you know your woman well enough, you'll know what she likes. Don't break your bank going overboard. The ring is important, but not as important as you think. The ring is a symbol of your love, so whatever you present, will let her know what she means to you. If you put effort into it, she will know. If she's vapid and criticizes the ring, then maybe that's a strong signal that it isn't the best option to settle down with.

As far as weddings go, save your money and go cheap. Weddings are nothing but a price gouging nightmare. I think we planned on a $6k wedding and so far, I'm not sure we've paid for anything. Family/friends have offered to cover just about everything thus far so we might clock in under 3k or less. We're going very basic. We already live in a house, but if you're younger, save your money and use the money you would spend on a big wedding for a house downpayment.

My wife and I got married last year(1st for us both) and we're older (mid 30s) so we've both been living on our own for 10-15 years, so we didn't expect our parents to help pay for anything. We decided on a ring and wedding budget of around 10 grand(what we could comfortably spend out of our own savings), and I told my wife she could have the whole thing for a ring and we could get married at the courthouse. We ended up splitting it about 50/50 between the ring and small, but nice wedding.

To keep costs down for the wedding we did a noon wedding on a Saturday and took everyone to a nice lunch afterwards, had about 60 people there total(immediate family that live in-town + friends in town). Then we were free to party all night, just basically bar hopped with our friends all night, everyone paid their own way for booze and entertainment. Worked out well, all the old folks(our parents and relatives) were done with everything by late afternoon yet all the younger people(us and our friends) could stay out partying all night. There was no formal reception, that's where people waste the most money paying for crazy amounts of alcohol, DJs/bands, rental of a place, etc.

Heylel_sl said:

If anything, she's going a little overboard with the lo-fi planning, in that she wants to pay for it all ourselves rather than lean on her parents. I'm a little more traditional on that one, since we're already paying for the rings etc. I feel like the bride's family covering the wedding (when able and within reason) is a perfectly legitimate expectation.

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I think that's a fucked up expectation. Why exactly do you feel her family owes your money?