I take it you bought Wrestlemania?

Wait, does this mean you're taken?

You do realize that whenever I find out you're engaged I'm sending your fiancee a "My fiancee proposed to me, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt" shirt.

Also I agree: men should wear engagement rings too!

I used a family heirloom ring when I proposed. Early 1900's vaguely art deco style. It cost me about 50 bucks, which was the price of having it cleaned and reset properly. It looks classy and the wife still loves it.
I understand the desire to commemorate things and to have a tangible object there to represent the moment and the pledge of commitment. I just don't understand the impulse to spend thousands of dollars to make a point about it. If you think my engagement ring is cheap, well, fine by me. At the time I could have certainly bought something fancier but we took a helluva honeymoon trip instead.

At the risk of alienating those who do have a romantic bone in their bodies, why (especially given the current economic climate and newly elected sane leader) would one of the first, committed acts of love be wasting two months' salary on a hunk of pretty junk? Also, where can I get some of them t-shirts, Nicholas?

I did the same thing Hairy Reed did. For those of you lucky enough to be proposing to a lady with good taste in antiques, and a great-grandmother with good taste in originally inspiring the purchase of the now-antique, it's definitely the way to go.

For the rest of you, I recommend: antique shops (if you're rich), pawn shops (if you work for a living), or applying for a job with TSA (if you wish you were working for a living).

if you are going with diamonds,
i suggest either Canadian or cultured

In some contexts/cultures it's not unusual for men to wear engagement rings. My mother (Portuguese) bought my father (half Puerto Rican, half Portuguese-American) a gold ring with a jade setting. I believe he wore it on his left ring finger until the wedding, when it moved to the right ring finger and was replaced with the actual wedding ring, a traditional gold band. My dad wore the engagement ring through much of my childhood, though he was more apt to take it off than the wedding ring (partly because it was bulkier).

As someone who had a long engagement for various reasons, I was quite happy wearing my wedding ring for a good while before we actually got married. Of course then it was weird to not wear it for part of a day.

Where I live, Argentina, the general sentiment is to not spend that kind of cash on a ring that's just going to attract attention from thieves. That money is probably better spent on buying an apartment or something, anyway.

That said, the American-style movie-production proposal is also not really done here, either. There's usually a series of conversations between the couple about getting married and eventually they announce to everyone that they're planning a wedding. To me that makes a lot more sense since two people are involved in the decision and it's an important one that shouldn't be made on the spot.

Two months' salary seems outrageous (and I spent significantly less than that), but I disagree that it's junk or a waste. Think about it this way -- how many t-shirts or gourmet meals can be used every day for the next several decades and still be roughly good-as-new?

It's just like buying nice silverware -- it's only expensive until you consider how long it can last.

My engagement/wedding ring set was bought at a flea market outside of Hamilton, Ontario. For a flea market purchase, it was quite expensive, but a lot less than 2 months of my intended's salary. It's also recycling, so that makes me happy.

Soon to be 17 years later, I still like my rings. I hope one of my boys will give them to his sweetheart one day.

the engagement ring
a diamond is forever
two months salary

the best marketing of the last century(and some rather unsavory business practices) turned a stone with little intrinsic value into a symbol of wealth love and fidelity

Same in Brazil as Argentina. Both partners wear engagement rings, which are nice and elegant gold bands, switching hands once married.

I was lucky enough to find my beautiful Brazilian fiancee, and we followed that custom. Despite a few subtle and disapproving looks from others, we're both quite happy with our choice, and the larger down payment saved for our future home because of this.

I'm with you. I find the 'A List Actors' rings gaudy and just unnecessary. I'm all about simple yet classy. Plus, bigger is not always better.
I also don't really get the need for engagement rings either, but I think for some people it becomes a status symbol. Personally, I like the Jewish tradition of simple wedding bands. Makes things easier for everyone.

Two months? A friend of mine got engaged before buying the ring, and when he mentioned the "two months net" rule he was told very sharply that, no, it was three months, gross.

Remarkably, reader, he still married her.

"I used a family heirloom ring when I proposed. Early 1900's vaguely art deco style. It cost me about 50 bucks, which was the price of having it cleaned and reset properly. It looks classy and the wife still loves it."

Here's another vote in favor of heirloom jewelry (if you can get it) or antique jewelry. Antique jewelry sells at a discount relative to new, which makes no sense to me.

Anyway, I got beautiful 1920s-1930s art deco rings for my wife, and a WW2-era plain palladium band (which appeals for geeky scientist reasons to me) for myself.

The jeweler even pointed out an interesting, if tragic, indication of history on my wife's rings. Pre-WW2, most diamonds were cut in Rotterdam, and of course most jewel cutters were Jewish. After WW2, the holocaust almost eradicated the population of jewel cutters in Rotterdam, so jewel cutting moved to India. As the price of labor in India was less than it was in Rotterdam, jewels cut post-WW2 have more cuts than those cut in Rotterdam, and so look more sparkly.

I hope the jeweler who cut the stones in my wife's ring died peacefully pre-WW2, or escaped before the war.

I also don't really get the need for engagement rings either, but I think for some people it becomes a status symbol. Personally, I like the Jewish tradition of simple wedding bands. Makes things easier for everyone.