Wat?!

Only a big diamond ring is forever

Is it just me or do you also feel that marriage season has come around again?

Whenever it's the end of the year, I start to see a rash of female friends in the throes of engagement bliss.

Perhaps it is the happy thought of getting their bonuses, or the giving spirit of the festive season, but lovestruck men are often emboldened to go down on one knee this time of the year to pop the big question.

Everywhere I turn, I bump into a blushing bride-to-be.

'I'm getting married,' she blurts out, smiling beatifically.

And no matter where we are - in the office or in the women's loo in Ngee Ann City - what follows is always the same: She will whip out her left hand and proceed to blind me with a dazzling diamond solitaire.

We will yabber on about carat, cut, clarity and cardiac arrest - whether her fiance had one when he saw the price of his purchase. And inevitably, I will become secretly jealous - not of her impending union - but of her bountiful bling.

Oh, I'll say it already: We live in a material world, and I am a material girl. (Actually, Madonna said that in 1985 but I'll borrow it for now.)

I can do without a lavish wedding in a five-star hotel and I don't really care for a Vera Wang gown. Heck, I don't even mind taking my vows at the Registry of Marriages at lunchtime and going right back to work to file a story right after.

But if my husband-to-be stints on my engagement ring, I'll most likely clobber him with my stiletto shoe.

For me, it's the rock, not the thought, that counts - and I'm not the only woman who feels this way.

As J, a straight-talking married girl friend of mine told me over dinner last week: 'Marriage is about commitment and all that boring stuff. Engagement is about The Ring.'

She said, sagely, that sporting a diamond engagement ring - a decent-sized one, of course - symbolised the one point in a woman's life where she could bask in the frivolity of love; in the knowledge that her man - bless his wallet - had blown a decent proportion of his hard-earned savings to win her over.

To add to the euphoria of the moment, a woman with The Ring often becomes an object of envy among her single friends, which then leads to feelings of smug superiority.

After all, once it is replaced with the more staid, jewel-less wedding band as custom dictates, life takes a serious turn and you have to worry about mortgages, children and so on, said J.
So heaven forbid if your man were to present you with an itsy-bitsy stone or worse, a cubic zirconia. Besides, I think one shouldn't mess with tradition.

Diamond engagement rings date back to the Middle Ages and even the Romans. In 1477, Maximilian I, then Archduke of Austria, presented one to Mary of Burgundy. Diamonds were used because they were the most beautiful, expensive and enduring gems.

I have heard of couples who, in pragmatic Singaporean fashion, prefer to use the money that would have gone to the engagement ring for the downpayment for a car or flat instead.
A friend who did so rationalised: 'You wear the engagement ring only for a while because you eventually replace it with the wedding band, so why spend the money?'

I disagree. Before a couple are sworn to each other for life, there must surely be a precursory - not to mention substantial - gesture to symbolise the seriousness of their upcoming commitment?

Valuing that in terms of carats may seem crass to some, but if you look at a diamond as the modern-day equivalent of cattle and land, it's a societal practice that has been around like, forever.

Which leads to the $64-million question: How much should a man spend on an engagement ring?

The industry standard is two months of his salary, and this came about in 1947 when diamond producer De Beers - in an effort to increase diamond sales in the United States following the war - launched a marketing campaign with the slogan 'A diamond is forever'.

To make the gems seem affordable, it also set about persuading customers that an engagement ring should be worth a manageable two months of a man's salary.

From a straw poll of my friends, I found - not surprisingly - that most men see the guideline as what they should be spending at the most, while most women saw it as the minimum amount that their ring should cost.

I, of course, belong to the latter camp - which may also explain why no man has ever gone down on his knee to me yet.

Still, I must admit, a ring can take you only so far in endearing yourself to a loved one.
A friend blew about four months' salary to buy a $20,000 ring for his girlfriend, who promptly melted into tears of joy when she saw the rock.

But upon presenting it to her, that silly man had to spoil the moment by quipping: 'Here you go, bigger than your 'bee sai' (Hokkien for 'booger').'

Now, that's a man I would like to clobber, too.

Article above taken from AsiaOne.Com

Scary shit.

No wonder S'pore men prefer foreign brides.

And whose fault is dat?

'The industry standard is two months of his salary'

To think my engagement ring only cost him less than $200!

I was cheated ah like dat!

Should have ask him for a $4k diamong ring instead.

hahahahaha

But wats the point right.

It's not like I'm gonna wear it everyday.

Most of the time I'm happy wearing the $20 silver ring he bought for me.

I only wear my engagement or wedding ring on special occasions.

2 months his salary.

Yah, no need to eat or pay bills for that 2 months lor....

Does having a big, humongous rock on your finger equal love & happines?

I dun tink so.

Good for you that ur fiance can afford to buy you that.

But wat matters at the end of the day is his heart.

I may have a tiny, teeny diamond for an engagement ring but it didn't matter.

Hubby loves me.

He spoils me.

He is my rock.

My diamond.