Engagement Ring

[Djangopoker]

My standard, "Will this go on sale at any point?"

Works a lot of the time.

[Forbin]

Or,

3) Call up her best friend and have her go shopping with you. The chances are very, very good that they've already discussed what they want in a ring. Swear her to secrecy. You get the surprise element, and she gets the ring she wants.

[Glo]

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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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Whatch out for what's in store for the future..... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[JasonK]

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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?

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Definately my choice. You can be subtle about it and see if volunteers info. Take her to the mall and try to get her to notice a ring or something in a store display. If you get her talking about rings she may just tell you what she wants. There's really not much you need to know other than cut and maybe size.

[Lottery Larry]

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I know that we've had threads about "Can you negotiate the price of XYZ" before, but I don't think this was covered to the extent that I'm interested in.

If you go to a standard jewelry store (Tiffany's, Zales, Jared, whatever else) and buy an engagement ring, is it acceptable to negotiate the price? Or would they give me a funny look and say, "Um, you can't do that here" ?

Secondly, if yes, about how much can I expect to negotiate down? 10%? 20%?

Thanks,
bigbootch

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You can negotiate anything. For jewelry, this is probably a bad time (getting worse) as the holidays are approaching and I'm sure lots of rings go as gifts.

[2p2Reader]

it's easy, just grab like a few of her friends and go with them. Girls usually go shopping with friends that share their tastes in style, so just get those girls that she always shops with to go with you (make sure you can trust them to not ruin their friend's surprise). You really do need a woman (women)'s judgement on something this important. This way, she will be happy and surprised to get something she loves.