Woman Angry Her Fiance Only Spent £1,300 On Engagement Ring

Is romance dead? For this Mumsnet user, it seems to be. When her boyfriend proposed, she accepted graciously, but she was not happy with the ring.

There's a lot of weird etiquette surrounding engagements and engagement rings. Some people believe that the man should spend 1-3 months' of his salary on the engagement ring. Some thing he should pick it out himself, others want to choose the ring together.

And if you're planning on wearing it for the rest of your life, I guess you have to really like it.

So what was wrong with the ring? Was it a blood diamond? Was it weird - like a dolphin engagement ring? Some people just really like dolphins... Or was it ugly or too small?

Nope, it wasn't flashy enough. She wanted something more expensive because her husband-to-be is rich.

So she took to Mumsnet to vent her feelings: "DP proposed and presented me with the ring he'd chosen - a diamond solitaire in white gold. I was so happy and excited to accept but was disappointed when I first saw the ring. The first word that entered my head was 'small'."

When someone asks you to marry them, I believe what you should be thinking about is how in love you are and how amazing your life together is going to be. Not some piece of metal and stone that you're going to wear on your finger. But hey ho.

"There's nothing to dislike about the type of ring per se, as a diamond solitaire would have been my choice, but it's the whole thing - the colour of the gold, the setting, the small stone and relatively chunky shoulders," she carries on, ungratefully.

"His salary is nearing a 6 figure sum and he's usually very generous. Having seen the receipt I know he paid £1,300 for it - which is a lot less than I would have imagined he would have spent on such a significant piece of jewellery."

I have a lot of questions - why is she looking at the receipts for presents that her fiance gives to her? That's just weird. And surely paying over a grand is a lot for a ring?

What if he wants to keep his big salary for the wedding, or buying a home together.

And what's the problem, anyway? She likes the ring, it's just not expensive enough for her. I would remind this person it's not a dolphin ring with creepy green eyes.

At least she acknowledges she doesn't want to bring it up with 'DP'.

"He'll be more disappointed in me for making a fuss over it when, in his eyes, it fits and there's nothing actually wrong with it rather than being disappointed that I'm not truly happy with it," she admits. "Someone at work apparently told him that 'if she makes it all about the ring, then she's not the girl for you'."

Ironic. Seems like his colleagues are already suspicious of her.

She continues: "Ideally I would have loved for us to have chosen a ring together and made a special day finding one we both liked. As it's something I'll be wearing every day and is such a special piece of jewellery I wanted to really love it and I just don't."

Understandably, reactions on Mumsnet were mixed.

Nocake wrote: "Blokes can't win. They're criticised if they don't pick the ring themselves and criticised if they do. And the thing about how many months salary he should spend... It was a marketing slogan by DeBeers who control the diamond market. Essentially an advertising scam that the world has fallen for."

It's true - DeBeers, an American jeweller made up that it was tradition to spend three months' salary on an engagement ring to make men spend more on engagement rings. Manipulative, cunning, evil... what a plan. And it worked.

Credit: PA

Some people were more sympathetic.

Carnationlilyrose wrote: "Well I don't think you're being unreasonable - maybe a bit about the size but you're the one who has to wear it for the rest of your life so you need to at least like the style.

I would very kindly tell him that it's lovely but you would rather have a different style and ask if you can choose something together. If you can't have that conversation with him then you probably shouldn't be getting married!"

What do you think? She deleted the post, so perhaps she had second thoughts about complaining . Let's hope she's still getting married.

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