Anonymous wrote:Not sure it's a "trend" but I hate when someone has 4 tiny stones pushed together to make it look like one big stone.

Ugh, yes. Zales or Jared or whatever just suckered you into taking their teensy trash diamonds off their hands and making you think you got a "big" engagement ring. It's visually just ugly to boot.

Anonymous wrote:the halo

+1. hate it. And rose gold. It's going to be so passe soon.

Being concerned about size above all. The McMansions of jewelry.

Anonymous wrote:If I'm looking at a catalog: halo, pave, all-platinum-everything, and I super-hate the additional matching wedding band that frames or locks around the engagement solitaire like a puzzle piece to embiggen the whole setup. Anything that lends toward trying to make the ring look bigger or shinier than it actually is jumps out at me as try-hard.

But I am an anti-engagement ring person so I have no ring to offer for comparison. In reality, if you like it I love it. If it makes the person wearing it happy who tf cares what I think?

This x 1 million.

Also the specific diamond shapes people choose to try to make the ring look bigger (marquis, oval, pear). Those shapes can be really pretty but it's deeply tacky when the main goal is to make the diamond look huge.

Funny this topic has come up. My DS will be getting engaged sometime soon (he didn’t tell his me when). He is in Residency and has little money (hello school loans) so I offered him a ring that had been my grandmother’s. Early 1900’s, white gold, antique looking, and tiny diamond. The jury is still out whether he takes up my offer.

If I'm looking at a catalog: halo, pave, all-platinum-everything, and I super-hate the additional matching wedding band that frames or locks around the engagement solitaire like a puzzle piece to embiggen the whole setup. Anything that lends toward trying to make the ring look bigger or shinier than it actually is jumps out at me as try-hard.

But I am an anti-engagement ring person so I have no ring to offer for comparison. In reality, if you like it I love it. If it makes the person wearing it happy who tf cares what I think?

Engagement rings are a gift from the person you are hopefully, deeply in love with as you are on the cusp of your marriage. It is also a timeless tradition reflecting a vow and is deeply meaningful to some people. High quality diamond rings are often very pretty or beautiful. Of course, if you are not into it that is fine, and it has become less meaningful overall over time but to those of us married 15 plus years (maybe even 10) it was and often remains meaningful. My parents are married 60 years, my mother's rings are deeply sentimental and after she passes, which i hope is still many years away, they will be treasured. I hope mine and hers are passed to my children both my daughter and my son if he chooses to marry someone who would want one. Old women married for decades or widows who still wear their rings move me. I think there is a real beauty in it, whatever kind of ring.

I don't know, I love my rose gold, halo ring, and got tons of compliments on it when we actually went places. To each their own.

I basically hate all engagement rings that look like engagement rings. I just really don't like classic diamond engagement rings. They all look vaguely the same to me. Doing a "halo" or an eternity band or whatever doesn't change it. It just feels unoriginal and impersonal and not even particularly appealing.

All my favorite engagement rings are non-traditional. One friend did a sapphire and it's a really pretty ring. My mom has an emerald clustered with two tiny diamonds and it's really pretty and very her. I know a woman I used to work with who did a set of narrow stacked bands (one engagement, one wedding, one for the birth of her child, and one for her 10 year anniversary) that were each a little unique to mark each milestone. No stones at all, just delicate metalwork. I loooooved that -- it was so personal to her and a wonderful daily reminder without being like "HI HERE'S THE GIANT DIAMOND MY HUSBAND BOUGHT ME."

Anyway, most of the women I know who have diamond engagement rings don't wear them anymore. Most of them just wear their wedding bands, as do their husbands. That's probably what we should all do anyway.

Anonymous wrote:Engagement rings are a trend. And they are the worst.

They are a fabrication by DeBeers to sell overpriced stones. Just stupid and a total waste of money. At least just get a synthetic stone and don't throw your money down the drain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the small diamonds around the band, especially in combination with the halo.

Agree with PPs about the ridiculousness of the practice. I don’t have an engagement ring and DH and I don’t really wear our wedding bands.

Im glad to hear that we aren’t the only ones who don’t wear our bands. DH once went on a business trip and somebody flirted with him super hard and the people he was with were confused when he rejected her. They thought he wasn’t wearing his ring on his trip out of town so he could have an affair. So I mean maybe we should but what a pain just so he can avoid that situation. Maybe if he ever goes on a business trip again he can get one off of Amazon and wear it.

Neither my father nor my grandfather wore wedding bands. Both were married for 40+ yrs, and didn't cheat on my grandmother/mother (to my knowledge). Really, it means nothing. Cheaters gonna cheat, ring or not. I told DH he could wear one or not, up to him. He does, but because he likes it and wants to.

Engagement rings are stupid and a waste of money. I told DS to run from any woman that insists on one.

Anonymous wrote:Engagement rings are a trend. And they are the worst.

Never thought I'd want one until I was in that phase of my relationship, then I suddenly wanted a diamond, lol.

Not sure it's a "trend" but I hate when someone has 4 tiny stones pushed together to make it look like one big stone.

I have a solitaire, but I'll agree that the whole practice is silly. It's just by the time we all have that perspective, most of us are already married.

I am very glad my DH didn't spend $10k+ on my ring though.

I'd like to get an anniversary ring one of these days, but will probably opt for CZ over a real diamond.

Engagement rings are a trend. And they are the worst.