Friday QT: why are men expected to pay £1k +

MonkeyMonster

clarkey cat wrote:

In my office I'd say I have spent (or been spent on) the least, or near the least, on an engagement ring out of everyone.

and you work where?

SimonAH

Engagement ring - inherited from her Gran
Wedding rings - had them made, not off the shelf, but still surprisingly inexpensive

When I lost my mother a couple of years ago I had the gold from her engagement ring incorporated into the gold in my wedding band and had the 1.2 carat stone reset in a pendant for my wife.

Loads of sentiment, not loads of cost.

That's the way Uh Hu Uh Hu I like it Uh Hu Uh Hu....

clarkey cat

Whitehall Expenses Department

rick_chasey

Presumably your remit doesn't include expenses of MPs?

ddraver

I'm nowhere near proposing to anything but 3 months salary? Feck right off! Think what we could do with that money!

I'm fairly sure I'd tear my fingers off within hours of wearing any sort of ring so I'm not sure I'd go for it but I heard about a noted bike journalist or racer who's fiancee had a Ti ring made for him "to save weight." I have to admit I quite like that idea!

MonkeyMonster

clarkey cat wrote:

Whitehall Expenses Department

touche... and yes if that is de rigour (mortis) then I can see why 4 grand is at the lower end.

Ben64

mrc1 wrote:

I do quite a bit of rock climbing and am scared of ruining my ring on the rocks or losing it if I have to take it off (marriage next year)...

Please don't wear rings whilst climbing, google "degloving injury" for some pretty gruesome pictures!

bompington

Can't believe how many cyclists are here complaining about overpriced carbon ;-)

FWIW I sold my car and camera to buy Mrs Bomp hers, I guess it was about 3 months' take-home pay as I was a semi-voluntary outdoor instructor at the time, but I still had to borrow £10 from her to make up the £200 cost.
20-odd years later I would definitely consider it a sound investment.

Edit: + lots to comment about rock climbing, rings and de-gloving, I can tell you that they look much worse in real life than in pics.

rick_chasey

ddraver wrote:

I'm nowhere near proposing to anything but 3 months salary? Feck right off! Think what we could do with that money!

I'm fairly sure I'd tear my fingers off within hours of wearing any sort of ring so I'm not sure I'd go for it but I heard about a noted bike journalist or racer who's fiancee had a Ti ring made for him "to save weight." I have to admit I quite like that idea!

Get a Dutch girl. Doubt she'd be expecting one...

veronese68

When we got engaged the jeweller had the wrong price on the ring, said it was about 50% more than the marked price. Not wanting to seem too cheap I coughed. I got a Tag Heuer F1 a while later.
Regarding being able to afford to get married if we'd waited until we could afford it we probably still wouldn't be married or have kids. You just have to get on with it and do the best you can. We pulled in a few favours and had a great do. A mates '56 Chevy as the wedding car and a MkII Jag for the bridesmaids. Reception by the river in Richmond. A mates dad was the photographer, retired press photographer. Honeymooned at my bosses place in Crete.

pitchshifter

My girlfriends been eyeing up engagement rings for a while, she picked one out last month that she says she really, really likes. Pretending I was at work the next morning and went and bought it...

Passing the jewellers after going to the shop she noticed it was gone. This didn't go down well, and what followed was a week of "I can't beleive someone has MY ring!!", multiple guilt trips refering to "that ring" and "are you even saving for one?"...

I have yet to give her this ring.. I might bring home a new carbon frame next week, that will test her love and commitment 8) ...

greg66_tri_v2.0

londonlivvy wrote:

I once met a girl who had an ENORMOUS engagement ring and I stuttered "wow. that's quite a ring" (or some such eloquent remark). Her fiancé then proudly told me it had cost him £180k. I thought he was a knob for bragging and for spending such a ridiculous sum on a bloody ring. That's more than my flat. Indeed more than most people's homes. She was terrified of losing it and turned the stone inwards when she walked anywhere so as not to get mugged.

A few years ago we were en famille to NY. The kids were allowed to try on a ring in Tiffany with a value of about that.

I never realised those things actually made it out of the door though.

ddraver

@ Veronese - That's the spirit, I bet most of your guests thought it was one of the best they'd been to! There's nothing worse that weddings where people are just going through the traditional motions becuase they feel like they have to. Especially as I'm a bit younger, know vaguely what my collegues earn and know that they must have taken out a huge loan to pay for all the associated crap when all 99% of the people in the room cared about them rather than the colour of the confetti or some such rubbish!

MonkeyMonster

pitchshifter wrote:

My girlfriends been eyeing up engagement rings for a while, she picked one out last month that she says she really, really likes. Pretending I was at work the next morning and went and bought it...

Passing the jewellers after going to the shop she noticed it was gone. This didn't go down well, and what followed was a week of "I can't beleive someone has MY ring!!", multiple guilt trips refering to "that ring" and "are you even saving for one?"...

I have yet to give her this ring.. I might bring home a new carbon frame next week, that will test her love and commitment 8) ...

The smile on her face will be priceless...

London_Falcon

I did the one month's salary thing. She'd have got a bigger diamond if she hadn't wanted platinum for the ring itself.

The wedding itself was superbly low key and I'd seriously recommend this approach. We'd just bought our first house so could afford the whole church thing (plus it's not my cup of tea) so we arranged a nice fortnight's summer holiday and paid £750 extra for them to organise a wedding (incl. licence, photographers, cake, buffet lunch, limo etc). We had a few family and friends there too and then two proper beery receptions on our return to the UK for those that had missed out.

The wedding supper for one of those 12 course meze jobs at a family run restaurant up in the hills, absolute suberb. Wedding snaps were so much better for the blues skies, beach and endless sunshine.

One day we may add a couple of stones to her engagement ring, perhaps on a significant anniversary, just to bling it up a bit.

SimonAH

Actually the really extravagant ones look fake.

And the weirdest thing of all is that the women in the side of my family that has more money than God all, in fact, wear fake jewellry and keep the real stuff in a bank.

clarkey cat

We got married in September Veronese - did it pretty cheaply too. It cost us, all in, about £5,000.

Wedding car was a Morris Minor!!!

rick_chasey

clarkey cat wrote:

We got married in September Veronese - did it pretty cheaply too. It cost us, all in, about £5,000.

Wedding car was a Morris Minor!!!

Less cheap for the attendees I'd suspect

rjsterry

MonkeyMonster wrote:

pitchshifter wrote:

My girlfriends been eyeing up engagement rings for a while, she picked one out last month that she says she really, really likes. Pretending I was at work the next morning and went and bought it...

Passing the jewellers after going to the shop she noticed it was gone. This didn't go down well, and what followed was a week of "I can't beleive someone has MY ring!!", multiple guilt trips refering to "that ring" and "are you even saving for one?"...

I have yet to give her this ring.. I might bring home a new carbon frame next week, that will test her love and commitment 8) ...

The smile on her face will be priceless...

Indeed - brownie points coming out of your ears.

clarkey cat

Rick,

Our guests didn't spend a penny. We had a small wedding but it was all laid on.

We didn't have a wedding list either and just asked for charitable donations to Beating Bowel Cancer.

rick_chasey

Hero.

You paid for them to fly over, and had a wedding, and it only cost £5,000?

You need to come sort my life out.

Ben6899

Greg66 wrote:

clarkey cat wrote:

if he is such a big swinging dick why is he still renting?

sounds like a middle office chump flashing other people's cash.

Yeah, that's right Rick.

Now *you* are going to get castigated for knowing a chump! That's how it works, see.

Chump-knower!

Love this!

Chapeau.

clarkey cat

err, no-one flew anywhere. We had our wedding in the UK.

I take that back - my great-aunt flew over from Conneticut.

rick_chasey

clarkey cat wrote:

err, no-one flew anywhere. We had our wedding in the UK.

I take that back - my great-aunt flew over from Conneticut.

Ha, I read that you got married in Verona.

I guess it pays to actually read eh?!

pitchshifter

rjsterry wrote:

MonkeyMonster wrote:

The smile on her face will be priceless...

Indeed - brownie points coming out of your ears.

Its not on her finger yet, it could quickly become a Super Record groupset if she dishes up fish fingers with no tomato sauce again..

clarkey cat

Fraid not RC. However, I know what you mean. I had some friends get married abroad and were enthusing about how much money it saved them... Of course, what that meant was the increased cost of getting married in the UK was just pushed on to their guests with flights, hire cars, accommodation etc. It was a nice wedding though.

veronese68

Rick Chasey wrote:

clarkey cat wrote:

err, no-one flew anywhere. We had our wedding in the UK.

I take that back - my great-aunt flew over from Conneticut.

Ha, I read that you got married in Verona.

I guess it pays to actually read eh?!

That just caused a minor tea drinking incident. Excellent.
Our reception was great. Wine was bought in France and we paid corkage. A friends girlfriend left him the following day because she couldn't handle living with a drunk any more. Somebody was reading a newspaper in the bar. One of the guests thought this very rude in the middle of a party and set fire to it. The best man disappeared at the same time as one of the bridesmaids for a while. Her Dad was ready to kill him, when they both appeared from completely opposite directions just before a major incident kicked off. It's still talked about amongst friends when great piss ups are discussed and it was 16 years ago.

bsc8180

I think we spent around £500 on the rings - 1 engagement ring and 2 wedding rings. Intrestingly she has lost the engagement ring and has just broken the wedding ring.....
We had other things we wanted to spend the budget on.
Dont beleive the tosh about the cost of the "average wedding". 25% of the budget was the wedding day, the other 75% was honeymoon and another holiday with the kids. Still came in miles less than the cost of an average wedding.
Was still the best day ever.

Aidy

After you're married it's all your (plural) money anyway, right?

Wrath Rob

bsc8180 wrote:

I think we spent around £500 on the rings - 1 engagement ring and 2 wedding rings. Interestingly she has lost the engagement ring and has just broken the wedding ring.....

This is another reason for the €1 ring. My wedding ring was titanium (about £25). She wanted a silver ring, although I offered her a platinum one, so that was about £45. Wedding was in Puglia, Italy, which was small, intimate and fantastic for the 42 of us there. Total cost was less than €9k, which was a good thing as we hadn't done much saving thanks to the missus spending all our cash on a house.

I've since bought her a "proper" engagement ring which she got last Christmas. Fortunately it was a manufactured diamond (which I told her when she got it) as she's since lost it, having already broken the €1 ring. I could now buy her a replacement but by her own admission, there's no point. I think I'll get her a another manufactured diamond one at some point and rivet it to her body. Possibly a surgical implant like this



Try loosing that, wifey!