Engagement Ring

[citanul]

mayday,

for some reason i can understand how this process works at a jewelry store or even a loose stone store, but i cannot understand how one would go about this at say, nordstrom for a pair of jeans. something about the lack of necessity of interaction with an employee to find what you are looking for, and the presence of stapled on price tags with clearly printed numbers is confusing me.

c

[bigbootch]

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mayday,

for some reason i can understand how this process works at a jewelry store or even a loose stone store, but i cannot understand how one would go about this at say, nordstrom for a pair of jeans. something about the lack of necessity of interaction with an employee to find what you are looking for, and the presence of stapled on price tags with clearly printed numbers is confusing me.

c

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I don't think this is done with a pair of jeans, I think only with high priced items (that generally DO require some interaction with a sales person). Like with furniture at Nordstrom's, or a large plasma TV at a best buy, for example.

[JJSCOTT2]

FWIW,

I used to know a lady who would absolutely haggle at Nordstrom and similar stores about the price of absolutely anything. She would simply select the items that she wanted to buy and then seek out a sales associate or manager or something and come up with any reason possible that she should be charged full price. For example, she would try to find miniscule imperfections in the clothing and then say they were "damaged" or say that a certain piece of clothing was "last years design" and would never sell at full price or similar things. I always thought she was cheap as [censored], but she ended up paying a lot less than if she payed sticker price.

[SoHotRightNow]

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Sort of off topic but I felt it's worth mentioning...

Are you taking your gf with you to shop for rings? If not I would recommend doing so. My now fiancee agreed that any loss in "surprise factor" was more than made up for by getting exactly what she wanted in a ring.

This also has the added advantage of being able to hang on to the ring for a few weeks or months and get treated better than you ever have before (and probably ever will) as she's in constant anticipation of the proposal.

I only held out for a few weeks but definitely you should hold out longer and milk it for all it's worth.

KoW

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QFT - I can't recommend this strongly enough.

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There could be other potential benifits. We went looking for a ring, and she picked the one out that she wanted which was about $2k more than I could afford at the time. And of course, once she had found that ring, it was the only one that was going to do...

Fast forward to a few weeks later, and she proposes to me (long, v. romantic story for another thread), and slips me the ring she picked out to give to her. It turns out that she went back, haggled about 15% off the price, and then put a 50% downpayment on it out of her own money. We're getting married in April.

[tagtastic]

SoHot: Are you gonna take her last name too? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


Anyways to the OP: this depends on how much you wanna spend. If you're looking for something really nice, I suggest whiteflash.com or superbcert.com. It's actually very difficult to find diamonds of this quality (a cut above, real hearts & arrows) in local stores. The ones that approach it are far more expensive.

At the very least compare prices of diamonds to those on those websites (they sell average diamonds comparable to most stores as well). Do alot of research. Find out what all the numbers and letters mean and find out approximate pricing for lots of variations. Basically you should have an idea how much the diamond you're looking at is worth before you read the price tag.

Bargain hard for any major jewelry purchase - the markups are huge, the salesmen (or managers) have alot of wiggle room.

[Yads]

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This also has the added advantage of being able to hang on to the ring for a few weeks or months and get treated better than you ever have before (and probably ever will) as she's in constant anticipation of the proposal.


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Is this for real? I would assume you propose without a ring and then you go and buy one. Why would you go and buy one and then propose?

[SoHotRightNow]

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SoHot: Are you gonna take her last name too? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


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Yes, but only because her last name is "Uppercut".

[SoHotRightNow]

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This also has the added advantage of being able to hang on to the ring for a few weeks or months and get treated better than you ever have before (and probably ever will) as she's in constant anticipation of the proposal.


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Is this for real? I would assume you propose without a ring and then you go and buy one. Why would you go and buy one and then propose?

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Proposing without a ring, or with a gift voucher/candy ring/onion ring in place of a real ring isn't a good look. And didn't you read the part of the post you quoted?

[Yads]

It may not a good look, but how else do you bring it up? "Umm, honey, let's go look at engagement rings for no reason what so ever."

Edited to add if not having a ring because you wanted to have her pick it out is a deal breaker for your girl, it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway.

[tagtastic]

Hrm.. IMO the only proper way to propose is with ring in hand (watch a movie jeez).

You basically have two options here:

1) Buy on your own judgement, if you trust your taste and/or your interpretation of her tastes enough. This will score big points in the surprise factor, but backfire later when she decides she wants a better ring at some point (or if she secretly hates the ring).

2) Consult with her beforehand, find out exactly what she wants. Buy it later (this will be better for semi-surprise and bargaining). Seriously, who proposes anymore without talking to the other person about marriage beforehand?

The surprise factor for #2 will obviously be lower, but she'll be happier with the ring, happier showing it off to her friends and likely will not need a new one a few years later [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]