Wedding Rings... $$$?

Any "traditional" metrics such as 3 months salary or other BS pushed by the diamond companies are going to hose you and be pretty unreasonable (IMO) when using finance comp. 

Paid $15k for my wife's ring personally. A real vs. lab diamond was important to her, otherwise we just went to the store and looked at a bunch of different stones playing around w/ all the different cut / clarity / carat combos - the former 2 definitely had a much bigger impact than I would've expected going into it. Just wanted to make sure any imperfections / color differences weren't visible to the naked eye, otherwise I'm lucky I guess that my wife isn't a particularly flashy person.

Went real as well. Was $36k, made sure to get a high quality cut, colorless, and 2+ carats

It just depends on what your girl wants. Some girls don’t seem to care, but most (especially in the nyc area) do care about it being real a decent size.

In my case, I opened with low 5 figures, she said high 5 figures would be her dream and we settled for in between.

I would said the average cost of my friends in finance has been around 35k. My advice would be don’t get something comically large and make sure you know exactly what shape she likes.

sites like James Allen are great because you can visual all the 4Cs and see high res, zoomed in images with plenty of pricing data. The markup of buying diamonds in store is unbelievable.  You can usually negotiate with store owners as well. 

You should never get rejected during a proposal- it should NOT be a surprise. The specific location and date can be a nice surprise, but talking about getting married and being absolutely certain both of you are on the same page is crucial well before you even buy a ring.

I spent $2k on a sapphire ring from Blue Nile for my wife, she still wears it every day. Plan on upgrading in 3-5 years, I’m about to step away from my job and create my own business. If it succeeds enough I’ll upgrade it for her.

This girl says guys should spend 10x their salary…..😭😭😭😭😭

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvdS7GDp9j4/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

My fiancée proposed to me with a diamond ring so I dunno how much it was

I was fully willing and ready to spend 5 figures on a wedding ring for my wife. She sent me a custom design that she wanted (with a non-traditional stone) and I sent it to a friend of a friend who is a jeweler and he said he could make it for ONLY 2K. I literally saved tens of thousands because she wanted a non-traditional stone. Needless to say I got extremely lucky and my wife absolutely loves it as it is exactly what she wanted.

I think people are foolish to get real diamonds vs lab grown... de beers quite literally props up the price of real diamonds (they're not that valuable). Also, I prefer my diamonds to be ethical. The benefit is you get way more diamond for the $ (and it's still a real diamond).

its a very personal decision.  I would go shopping together and do some homework on James Allen's website.  good luck!

Paid $30k for a 3 carat ring using a private vendor in the diamond district who is a friend of my wife's family. She's not a particularly flashy person but did care about her engagement ring; I think we've subsequently spent 3k on wedding bands for each of us and a subsequent diamond band that she can stack with the engagement ring. 

$5,500. 

Not only would I not marry a woman who required a ~$30k ring, I wouldnt marry a woman who would let her future husband spend ~$30k on a ring

Assuming under 7 figure net worth. If you are worth $MM+ then by all means

12k. My budget was 15k and I let her pick what she liked, and then beefed up color cut clarity and got a custom designed band.

One large lab diamond, ~2.8c, surrounded by two small circular naturals (family heirlooms) each about .5 or something. Don't really know bc been in family for a bit.

She loved it. And the custom band truly makes the difference, I hand drew the design that's not like anything I've ever seen.

At least 300 chipotle dinners worth 

I believe that you should like the ring and that you can safely give it with the thought I chose it personally for her and it doesn't matter how much it costs because it's a symbiote and not an investment

When I was buying my fiancée’s ring, I cared way less about those “3 months’ salary” or any set percentage, and more about what would actually make her happy. We talked about preferences and budget openly so there wouldn’t be any weird surprises or pressure to overspend. I ended up customizing her ring, she was into a unique design and a lab diamond, so we got exactly what she wanted without chasing some arbitrary number. Honestly, shopping together made it a lot less stressful, since I could see what styles and stone shapes she liked up close.

If you haven’t looked into it, having the option for custom engagement rings is awesome. I got so many good ideas by seeing examples online and tweaking little details to really match her taste.

$0 or "priceless," depending on your perspective (I gave her one of my family's heirlooms). I personally think it's much nicer than anything you could get from Dousset, Winston, etc. Plus the history / story behind it is an added bonus... though I realize not all woman would be down for such a ring.

Worth mentioning that my wife actually wears a replica day-to-day while the original is in secure storage.

I feel like the “3 months salary” rule is mostly marketing nonsense at this point. It really comes down to what your partner actually values. I know people who spent low 4 figures and others who spent $30k+, and honestly the happiest outcomes seem to come from guys who paid attention to what their fiancée actually wanted instead of treating it like a flex. Also feels smarter to optimize for cut/design over just chasing the biggest stone possible.

~$6,000. I ignored the price until the design was final, focused on design instead of price. Wanted to be happy with how the ring looked then narrow down on affordability, which didn’t even come into the mix. I had $8,000 set aside for the ring (which was just the savings I accumulated while designing the ring)

The 3 months salary bs is from jewelry companies trying to justify paying for real diamonds. I used one lab grown diamond in the ring and natural other ones, turned out amazing. My wife understands the diamond market and actually said that if I overpaid for a huge real diamond that she would feel less comfortable tying our finances together… so that made things easier LOL

Really depends on the woman honestly. Two friend of mine had their wives tell them exactly what they wanted. Didn't break the bank but I remember both being in the ~$15-25K range which is less than the 3 months of their salary - both make well over $200K.

You can always get a simple wedding band and upgrade it later in life when you're in better financial shape. That's what my parents did before they started making / saving a significant amount of money.