Engaged w/o engagement ring??

[LuluLovesDisney]

I'm wondering- is there anyone here who was engaged w/o a ring, and how do you announce it to your family/friends etc. w/o a ring? Do you find that people take your engagement less seriously w/o a ring? Do you plan on getting one in the future?

Thanks!

 

[arkansas mom]

I didn't get one right away because it was spur of the moment kinda thing. I did get the plastic ring off the Dr. Pepper bottle he was drinking from.
I just called up my folks and said "guess what". It was all taken very seriously because we had a date and a plan. I got the ring about a month later. That was 14 years ago!

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

I think some people would take it a little less seriously but why would you care. It is between you and your fiancee. I do not know why but people always put value on material things. Then again ..it depeneds on your age. If you are like 18 and say you are engaged then people might just think it is whim.
If you are older then they will bug you about the ring.

Get a cz and wear it to shut them up if people ride you too much.

 

[disneychick05]

My friend recently did this. I think everyone was sort of confused as to why she was announcing this and had no ring. She did get the ring a few months later, but overall I think people just thought it was odd that she had no ring, but was engaged. I am married and I personally think that if I would have been in that situation, I would have just waited to tell people until I had the ring. I am wondering though....Does theguy re-propose after he gets the ring???

 

[shamrock30]

I was engaged without a ring. We were both sophomores in college. No one said anything about my lack of a ring except for one of my aunts, and she is one of those "open mouth, insert foot" kind of people so it didn't bother me. Our families and friends certainly took us seriously, since we were both known to be level headed and responsible.

Yes, I did get a ring, just not right after we decided to get married.

 

[luv2nascar]

I was asked for my hand in marriage once and I said yes. So I guess we were engaged. I had no ring and we didn't make a big announcement/ no date set. We were young and he was saving for the ring. We broke up a year later and he got engaged to someone else with my ring shortly there after. I don't think he ever did get married - not as far as I know and it 16 yrs later.

 

[NookOfTheNorth]

Apparently my husband had been thinking about asking me to marry him and was working on it but had not gotten to the ring stage. I was at a bit of crossroads...move/find new job, etc., and he just decided that was a good time to ask me to marry him; it would eliminate a few of my choices. Anyway, we were engaged for about a month prior to getting a ring, and to be honest, not having the ring was never an issue. In fact, only due to his insistence did I even get an engagement ring; just never interested me. And, as beautiful as it is, I rarely wear it now; I simply prefer my plain band.

 

[Cass]

Okay flame me, I think the ring part is important for an engagement. As soon as you tell someone you are engaged the first thing they do is grab your hand or ask about the ring etc...it is just a little strange without one and you will have to explain over and over that you don't have one yet.

Sorry! but it's how I feel

 

[HaleyB]

Mr Silly and I got engaged without a ring. We were poor students and needed the money for books. That was 12 years ago. We did end up buying a ring a while later, a nice little one. I will never upgrade it either, because it reminds me of how little those things matter when you are in love.

Congratulations!

 

[disykat]

I do not consider the ring an important part of the engagement. We decided to get married, set a date, and then went shopping for rings together. I would not have wanted dh to pick a ring and "pop" the question. We bought me a set and dh a band. Although I like my engagement ring, I don't always wear it, and sometimes even wish we had skipped it altogether. I'm not a jewelry kind of gal and think we would have been better off with matching gold bands.

I am not what most people would consider "liberated". I'm a pretty conservative SAHM who has taken on traditional "housewife" roles by choice. However, I have a problem with the idea that the man picks and chooses when and if to get engaged and puts a ring on the finger of his woman. I know other people don't see it this way, but I can read all sorts of control and ownership messages into it. Maybe if the men wore engagement rings too I wouldn't have an issue with it.

I also had some problems with some wedding traditions - so we simply didn't follow them. The key is to do what YOU want and make your engagement and wedding about you as a couple, not about being pressured into complying with the norm.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

I was engaged without a ring. It was not a big deal at all and I still consider my engagement (the official popping of the question part) to be incredibly romantic and special. We told everyone right away. No one even mentioned the ring thing (we were starving art students and I think people would have been more surprised had I had the ring) except for my IL's who live in Beverly Hills and are the definition of materialistic. I got the ring the month before the wedding (we were engaged for a year). I could have had a ring sooner, but dh wanted to get something really special (ie out of our budget) that he designed himself and didn't want to use credit, so he designed it and had it made and had put it on a payment plan/layaway before he proposed and did freelance graphic design projects (on top of his fulltime job and school) to pay it off. I would have been happy with anything, so long as I had him.

 

[Sleepy]

Okay flame me, I think the ring part is important for an engagement. As soon as you tell someone you are engaged the first thing they do is grab your hand or ask about the ring etc

And then there are some who think the size, style, clarity, etc are just as important as getting a ring. If it's too small, too cloudy, an outdated cut, wrong color etc, you might as well not even have one.

 

[Rella Bella]

Why agonize... go get a simple Cubic Zirconium ring to wear until you get the real thing. $50.00 or less and you won't have to answer a lot of questions.

Now I don't mean the $10 kind that will turn your finger green, but if you have a ring that's 14C and has a single small or med stone it won't cost much and no one will wonder why it's not fancy (they won't be able to tell it's not real either)... then when you get your new fancier or bigger 'real' ring, it can be "one you liked better because it's part of a wedding set".

 

[crazyme5kids]

I did. 21 years later I still don't have an engagement ring, but I don't want one. I do wear a plain gold wedding band, but that's it.

 

[disneynutcase]

My SIL didn't want an engagement ring. So she and my brother got engaged without one. They have been married over 25 years. My brother bought her mothers/engagement ring for Christmas last year. She is not a jewelry wearer.

Jean

 

[DVC-Don]

We got engaged in September and money was tight, so no engagment ring. But, by Christmas of that year I managed to get one for her. 26 years of marriage coming up on the 7th of this month.

 

[KelNottAt]

My DH asked me to marry him on April 15, 1989. Our wedding was August 18, 1990. That's a 16 month engagement. I didn't have a diamond ring until about a year after the "proposal."

We were new home owners and figured a roof over our heads was more important than a rock on my hand.

I bet I never would have gotten a ring at all if it weren't for my mom. She no longer had a use for the engagement ring Dad gave her (they were divorced). So, she offered it to DH. I've actually had people say my ring is a cursed-divorce-reject-hand-me-down. To me it's a family heirloom.

And yes. People don't think your engagement is real until there's a ring for "proof." Well, on second thought, for me, it was mainly the (jealous) single women who scoffed at my lack of a ring. Married women and nearly all men knew jewelry isn't the important part.

 

[mtemm]

my mom never had one, and dh and I got engaged without one (he went out and bought one, I really didn't care if I had one or not, although I do love it).

I think what makes it serious is setting a date, not a ring. We had our date set within hours of getting engaged. If you tell people you are getting married on such and such date, it sounds pretty serious.

 

[diesel]

My husband and I were just sitting around talking when we suddenly just started planning our wedding so there was no real proposal. My husband was waiting for his winter plowing money to come in before he got my ring. We got engaged in September but I didn't get my ring until April. My husband did suprise me with the ring. I kept expecting it for Christmas then Valentines then on my birthday he gives me a box that looks like a ring box but there are diamond earings (I was soo disappointed!) but then we went out for dinner and while we were there he got down on his knee and proposed with a ring. The earings were to throw me off. But I never felt weird not having a ring we still saw our priest to set a date and looked at places for the reception.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

Why agonize... go get a simple Cubic Zirconium ring to wear until you get the real thing. $50.00 or less and you won't have to answer a lot of questions.

Now I don't mean the $10 kind that will turn your finger green, but if you have a ring that's 14C and has a single small or med stone it won't cost much and no one will wonder why it's not fancy (they won't be able to tell it's not real either)... then when you get your new fancier or bigger 'real' ring, it can be "one you liked better because it's part of a wedding set".

The smaller the cz the more believable. Shopathometv.com is going out of business they jsut had a blowout sale and had some pretty decent 14K for around 30-60. It is all in the setting that makes it believable. They are going off the air on June 22 so they are sure to mark the stuff dirt cheap. Go for someting like that if you feel you need an outward symbol. I think too it would not be necessary to TELL people when they look at a ring.