Why is the engagement ring so much more ornate than the actual wedding ring?

GQ… have always wondered this myself.

Because people always ask to see the engagement ring. THey rarely ask to see the wedding ring.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s a promise of wonderful things to come. Wedding bands, on the other hand, need to be easy to wipe off baby poop, kitchen grime, and all the other things married life tends to lead to.

@MagsRags But, even after you’re married you still wear your engagement ring! (Cept…I didn’t after I had my babies. The darn thing kept slipping around to the inside of my finger, and I kept scratching their little faces, so I took it off. Hubby (now X) got mad!)

Sure, I guess people can do that – some people do do that. I didn’t have an engagement ring my second time around and our rings are the exact same thing – a simple band with some words engraved on it. It seems to me that these rings aren’t about promise or reality – maybe I’m wrong…I think the wedding band is smaller because the engagement ring has a stone and there is only so much space on the finger, lol.

A woman, when she receivies an engagment ring, has more time to showoff her ring to her friends and family. the time makes the difference, rather than the main wedding band.

The diamond engagement ring is not an old tradition, it was basically created (or at least popularized) by the diamond industry to increase sales.

If @Snarp is right, then I’m wrong but this is what I was thinking- Maybe it goes back to a time when people didn’t know each other and their finances as well before engagement? So the woman could show her family and friends the security her man could offer her before agreeing to the marriage? Just a guess.

From this article:

“Although it could do little about the state of the economy, N. W. Ayer suggested that through a well-orchestrated advertising and public-relations campaign it could have a significant impact on the “social attitudes of the public at large and thereby channel American spending toward larger and more expensive diamonds instead of “competitive luxuries.” Specifically, the Ayer study stressed the need to strengthen the association in the public’s mind of diamonds with romance. Since “young men buy over 90% of all engagement rings” it would be crucial to inculcate in them the idea that diamonds were a gift of love: the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women had to be encouraged to view diamonds as an integral part of any romantic courtship.”

I’ll be married 30 years this year, and we didn’t do an engagement ring. maybe because I’d been engaged 3 times prior to him, twice with a ring that I gave back.

DH has, however, replaced my lost wedding ring for me twice. Back when I still delivered babies, I had to take the ring off whenever I needed to scrub before a birth. I’m a little surprised I only lost two.

@Snarp is correct. I’ll be buying whoever I marry a lab-grown diamond ring, to avoid the whole blood diamond thing. They’re exactly the same as “real” diamonds, only I can feel good about not having infringed on anyone’s human rights, or filling the pockets of the already rich at the expense of the poor.

@Snarp You may be spot on!
I’ve always seen it almost as…a bragging thing.

Its traditional. A simple, continuous band that symbolizes never-ending, uninterrupted love. It is traditionally gold because of a promise to provide wealth or something. There’s a reason, it only waits to be found. :P

@avvooooooo Well….nothing can hurt gold or diamonds. The rings would last, literally forever.

@Val123 The uninterrupted band is an ancient infinity symbol. Or so I read. So that is for the marriage which theoretically lasts forever.

Once the fish is hooked, why waste bait?

@ratboy charming

@ratboy That’s really what it kind of seems like in a way!