The Lure of the Engagement Ring

by Kelly Bare

The idea of some kind of wedding-related ring as “earnest money,” or a symbol of the groom’s ability to support his bride-to-be, dates way, way back; ancient Roman, Jewish, and Germanic literature all mention it. Jaclyn Geller argues that this particular meaning still thrives, calling the modern proposal with a chunk of ice “a display of financial success. The gesture announces that for [the groom] such purchases are easy, that he is capable of decorating his beloved with baubles and gems (and, by implication, supporting her in high style). The gift combines romantic finesse, sexual prowess, and economic savvy in a streamlined package.”

But in 2005, the groom-as-gravy-train is only one way to get a great rock. Take, for example, a recently married woman whose engagement ring would impress anyone. It was in the family-her family. Her fiancé presented it to her on bended knee, and she wears it proudly. Now it’s an outward symbol of their status as a couple.

Another knockout ring wound up dissolving the engagement of a pair whose financial histories were very different: She owned her home and other investments, and was completely self-sufficient; he still rented and was nowhere near financially stable. So when the man spent literally every penny he had on the ring, his fiancée couldn’t see it as a symbol of his love. Instead, it came to represent an insurmountable incompatibility, a future full of unwise financial decisions and, quite possibly, struggle.

Engagement-ring tension played out in an entirely different fashion for a third couple. He gave her his grandmother’s diamond in a new setting, a decision on which his parents consulted. “Let’s call them a very traditional East Coast family,” says the bride, who hails from Texas and absolutely loathed the ring. “It wasn’t me. I was thrilled that he had proposed, but after the dust settled, I told him, ‘I really do want to marry you, but I don’t want to wear this ring for the rest of my life.’”

It says a lot about her husband that he didn’t quibble. “It’s hard to tell your fiancé that you don’t love what he’s just given you,” she admits. “I think it hurt his feelings a little bit, but he was willing to do what it took to make me happy. He put me in front of his parents’ desires.”

Since her husband-to-be was only making $18,000 a year, and she was unemployed at the time, she had to wait almost two years for her dream ring-a Harry Winston platinum band with a pear-shaped diamond and two little baguettes-which he bought at an estate jewelry store and presented to her on the day of her final wedding-dress fitting.

Ten years later, though, the ring she drooled over doesn’t fit her life. (Partly because she has a young daughter she’s afraid of scratching, and partly, well, just because. “When we go out with friends, I feel obliged to wear my rings, but I truly don’t think much about them otherwise,” she says.) Her wrist does the talking now. She wears two Cartier “love bracelets,” gifts from her husband. “They literally screw on-it comes with a gold screw-driver. They’re really special, and anyone who recognizes them knows that they are only given by a significant other.”

So at best, perhaps, the rings couples wear (or don’t) are fluid signs of how a relationship and the people in it evolve. I know a couple in their fifties who have used the tell-tale finger as a space to express all kinds of things: Custom-made silver-and-turquoise rings when they were footloose and fancy free in the ’70s. A second-hand diamond solitaire for her about five years later, purchased out of respect for (and with the help of) a “traditionalist” mother, along with new matching bands for both of them, designed by the husband, an architect, and cast by his amateur-jeweler father-in-law. A new ring for him, in the mid-’90s, skillfully fabricated of white, rose, and yellow gold, and bought on a whim while on vacation. Two “anniversary bands” for her, added to the mix when she was diagnosed with breast cancer right around the time of their 25th wedding anniversary. At times, one or both wore nothing at all, not because they didn’t want to, but because they were waiting for something that “worked” with the lives they were living at the moment.

Whatever you wear on the third finger of your left hand makes a statement. But sometimes rings don’t tell the truth, and sometimes they don’t tell the whole story-at least not on their shining surfaces.

Herman Rotenberg’s father-in-law, Bill Schifrin, the original proprietor of 1,873 Unusual Wedding Rings and an 87-year-old archive of wedding-ring anecdotes, told me one of his favorites. A well-dressed woman came into the shop, alone, and began placing an order for a custom-made ring. As they were about to complete the transaction, she told him, “It’s for my husband. If he doesn’t like it, can I bring it back?”

Of course not, Schifrin said, this is custom work. “No refunds, no returns.” Sorry.

OK, the woman responded, she would come back with her husband. The next day they both appeared; the husband liked the ring, signed off on it immediately, and went back to his office. His wife paid for the ring, then asked Schifrin to engrave something inside it for her.

The message? Their wedding date, and a truly timeless sentiment. “No refunds, no returns.”