Young lovestruck couples still mark their engagements with diamonds. But should they find a less expensive way to start their lives together?
Chance the Rapper proposed to his girlfriend Kirsten Corley on the Fourth of July. He got down on one knee and presented his wife-to-be with an engagement ring. When Britain’s Prince Harry proposed to Meghan Markle, there was a lot of talk about the ring. Prince Harry used two diamonds that belonged to his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and one from Botswana where the couple recently vacationed. Some experts estimate it could be worth up to $350,000.
Other couples put less emphasis on diamonds. Nearly one-in-four millennials said they would have no problem selling their engagement ring to pay for a house or college, according to a recent survey by WP Diamonds. Less than one-quarter of older generations feel the same way. This tallies with a slew of studies that conclude young Americans value experiences over stuff. They don’t feel tied by the same social conventions as their parents or even older siblings.
Extravagant diamond rings are a relatively recent phenomenon. The social expectation for engagement rings was actually created by jewelry and diamond companies in the first half of the 20th century, and it later became a tradition in movies. Giving a diamond ring to mark an engagement goes back to the “A Diamond is Forever” campaign by the DeBeers diamond company, which trademarked the sentiment. It was written by copywriter Frances Gerety in 1947.
If the advertising industry didn’t promote diamonds as a girl’s best friend for engagements, what person or institution would issue a decree that meant all men must buy diamonds? The Dalai Lama? The pope? Emily Post? Oprah? God?Only spend much as you can (a) afford or (b) think is prudent, experts advise. If the advertising industry didn’t promote diamonds as a girl’s best friend for engagements, what person or institution would issue a decree that meant all men must buy diamonds? The Dalai Lama? The pope? Emily Post? Oprah? God? There is no definitive or infallible source. You could put that money towards a down payment on a home or a trip of a lifetime. Perhaps more meaningful than that: Simply give your partner one of your own most treasured possessions.
There’s good reason to think twice about spending thousands of dollars on a ring. One in five households has zero or negative wealth, according to a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C. What’s more, an even greater share of African-American (30%) and Latino (27%) households are “underwater” financially. The combined impact of $1 trillion in credit-card debt, $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, and stagnant wages are taking a toll.
Those who use wedding organizers and wedding websites are likely to spend more than a couple who go it alone, and don’t consult experts in the wedding industry. Men are spending more on the ring than ever—$6,351, up 25% from $5,095 in 2011—a 2017 survey of 14,000 U.S. adults who are engaged or recently married and use the wedding website The Knot. That poll also found that most women know how much her husband spent on the ring.
When it comes to everyone else, however, Americans are either cheap or thrifty. Some 36% of people say couples should spend at least $1,000 on an engagement ring and 19% say you should spend between $1,000 and $2,999, according to a 2016 survey of more than 5,000 people by personal-finance site GoBankingRates.com. However, 45% said you should spend more than that. In fact, a large portion of those believe money should be no object.
‘The wedding industry has grown substantially throughout the 20th century in part due to the rise of consumerism and industry efforts to commodify love and romance and the necessity of a lavish wedding for a fairy tale marriage.’It may be wiser to spend the money elsewhere. The more you spend on an engagement ring and wedding ceremony, the shorter the marriage, according to a 2014 study by two professors in the Department of Economics at Emory University in Atlanta. They surveyed over 3,000 people in the U.S. who got married. They excluded respondents in same-sex marriages, those over 60 and people who completed their questionnaire in less than 2 minutes and provided inconsistent responses about age of partner.
Randal Olson, a computer scientist, crunched the data in the Emory report. Couples who spend $20,000 on their wedding (excluding the cost of the ring) are 46% more likely than average to get divorced; that risk falls to 29% higher than average for those who spend $10,000 to $20,000. The good news: Couples who spend between $1,000 and $5,000 are 18% less likely than average to get divorced and those who spend less than $1,000 are 53% less likely to get divorced.
One theory: Lavish weddings and big engagement rings may be a sign that a couple is marrying due to peer pressure and have their financial priorities mixed up. “The wedding industry has grown substantially throughout the 20th century in part due to the rise of consumerism and industry efforts to commodify love and romance,” the Emory report found. It cites bridal magazines, which play an important role in marketing “the necessity of a lavish wedding for a fairy tale marriage.”
