Women NOT from / live in the US - do you wear your e-ring everyday?

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#31
In Belgium wedding rings are worn on the right hand (it has a catholic origin: the righ side is the 'good' one) and engagement rings on the left. We wear the engagement ring often, but not always.
Engagement rings are mostly solitaires or what I call a flower( i don't know the right name: one big diamond in the middle and smaller around, like a flower);
Wedding rings are mostly 24 carat, white gold or platinum.
Eternity bands are for anniversaries typically.
 
#32
I am from a asian background. from what i've observed, most ladies only wear their wedding rings, and not their e-ring, thats in HK.
former generations, like my parents have gold/ platinum wedding rings without any diamonds. But in recent ads, I saw that most wedding rings have diamonds, like .1 or .2 and nothing big or flashy. both rings are identical as well.

DBF's brother got married last sunday, and his wife wore her e-ring together with her wedding ring too. (we're in australia)
Brother's wife had an eternity ring with tiny diamonds as a wedding ring, it complemented her e-ring very well. hers was a 1ct, near flawless diamond (i saw the gia cert, i was in aw!) Brother only had a white gold band.
 
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#33
Expat said:
I guess I'm in the "older generation" as Chic Chemist says :p. It's yellow gold, as are most of my rings. White gold turns brown on me and I don't like platinum.

I also think my generation (I can't comment for all Brits, of course) - we don't seem to go for the massive carat size & bling. I guess we're happy to get what we can :graucho: I don't know any Brits in my circle with mahoosive rocks.
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I'm sorry, reading it back it sounds a bit rude going on about, 'the older generation'! Oops - I didn't mean it badly!

I think you're right - I don't want to generalise too much but I don't think we go for big diamonds over here so much. Even when I visit London I don't really see many women wearing large precious stones.I don't know if they are perhaps quite expensive here - I have a 0.51 carat engagement ring and it seems pretty big to me - then I came on here and it seemed a bit inadequate! I know my fiance spent more than I would have expected on it. It's a D colour and v sparkly, so I don't know how much of a premium that added on.

Also I think my mum is with you on the eternity ring - traditionally over here it's more for a big anniversary, or the first child (or never!). I keep telling myself mine is only a half eternity so I can always get another! It's so tiny and delicate and just sets off my engagement ring so much better than a plain band. A thin plain band blended into my e-ring too much, and a thicker one looked too chunky on my hand.

And I must say I love your rings! I don't think I could carry off such intricate designs (I'm a jeans and t shirt kind of girl) but they are really beautiful.
 
#35
Chic Chemist said:
I'm sorry, reading it back it sounds a bit rude going on about, 'the older generation'! Oops - I didn't mean it badly!

I think you're right - I don't want to generalise too much but I don't think we go for big diamonds over here so much. Even when I visit London I don't really see many women wearing large precious stones.I don't know if they are perhaps quite expensive here - I have a 0.51 carat engagement ring and it seems pretty big to me - then I came on here and it seemed a bit inadequate! I know my fiance spent more than I would have expected on it. It's a D colour and v sparkly, so I don't know how much of a premium that added on.

Also I think my mum is with you on the eternity ring - traditionally over here it's more for a big anniversary, or the first child (or never!). I keep telling myself mine is only a half eternity so I can always get another! It's so tiny and delicate and just sets off my engagement ring so much better than a plain band. A thin plain band blended into my e-ring too much, and a thicker one looked too chunky on my hand.

And I must say I love your rings! I don't think I could carry off such intricate designs (I'm a jeans and t shirt kind of girl) but they are really beautiful.
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:D I thought it was very funny! Certainly not offensive in any way xxx

A fwiw, I'm a total scruff - jeans & t-shirts are for casual best!
I just love rings and luckily have long fingers so I can wear them ;)

Another thought on the differences - am I right in thinking Brits don't tend to go for "upgrades"? I'd never heard the phrase until I read it on tPF.
 
#36
^ No offense to anyone (it's great if you can get one) but most Americans don't go for upgrades either. I actually never even heard the term until I was on the board and Pricescope and most of the people I know (my age group is married 25-30 years) have not gotten upgrades. For a significant anniversary, the husband will get an anniversary band with stones.

On an 'older generation' note (I'm not ashamed of being an older woman) I tend to think of eternity bands or half-eternities or any rings with stones as being 'anniversary bands'. To me, a 'wedding band' is a plain gold or platinum band and you only get one of them. You can of course get other rings, but they are something else, not a wedding band. I am sure this is generational though as women under 40, even here in average middle America where I live, pretty much all have wedding rings with diamonds in them. I haven't seen a new bride get a plain wedding ring in years.

I repeat, I am talking about small-town middle America. The rules are very different in big cities like NY and Chicago and Atlanta and LA and places like that. I know something about NY because I am from there and have relatives from there and although it's exagerrated (when people say 'New York' they actually seem to mean a few lawyers and investment bankers in Manhattan, not the mass of working people who live there) there is definitely more bling in NY. It's the only place where I see bling that is at all comparable to the bling on this board. Case in point--I was a meeting of ladies the other day and all the engagement rings were .50 or under, someone had a modest three stone, the diamond wedding bands on the younger ladies were modest. EXCEPT for one lady who was wearing a one-carat diamond solitaire and a prong set eternity ring of probably one carat total weight. After the meeting I talked with her--turns out that she's not from this area but from Long Island, suburb of New York. I wasn't at all surprised.
 
#37
In Taiwan, most people don't get engagement ring and wedding band.
Like other Asia countries, our engagement ring = the wedding ring.
But under the influence of TV shows and Hollywood movies, some people do get wedding band as well.
Personally, I wear mine everyday.
But a lot of people I know, they don't like to wear accessories including their ring.
 
#38
Do you ladies ever notice any looks from other women when they see you're wearing your e-ring?

I was in the elevator the other day and some older women was just eyeing my e-ring non stop. Must be my dry hands! haha. This was not in the US.
 
#40
black jade said:
^ No offense to anyone (it's great if you can get one) but most Americans don't go for upgrades either. <snip>
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I am from Canada. The concept of upgrades is relatively new here, too. Back in the day when most of my friends were getting married, the rule of thumb was that the guy should spend 1 1/2 - 2 months wages on an engagement ring - and many guys were too practical (and too strapped with college debts) to spend even that much. As you can well imagine, there were not many large rings in that day. And as Black Jade says, today, while e-rings may tend to be a bit larger than in my day, gorgeous e-rings of 2 carats and larger are not the norm here either.

They are gorgeous and lovely to look at, but for me personally, the allure of an engagement ring wore off as I got older. My e-ing from my first marriage was a good quality ring of around .7 carats (Can't remember exactly.). We divorced and I kept the ring for awhile, then gave it to his daughter when she got married, after we had a 'cleansing ceremony' for it.

The second time around, I couldn't even be bothered with an engagement ring. My lifestyle of travel to third world countries and for work made me a target for robbery on the road and is just too show-y for my kind of work. My outdoors activities when home made it more of a nuisance than anything else. I couldn't justify spending thousands of dollars for an item that would stay in a box most of the time. So I opted for a gorgeous enamel and diamond designer wedding band. I take it off when I work in the gardens or when dying fabrics and half the time I go to work and forget to put it back on. The relationship means more to me than the ring and, after the experience of my first marriage, I realize that a ring has little to do with the quality of the marriage.

Not the common opinion in Canada, perhaps, I will admit.

All that said, I LOVE looking at the beautiful rings that you ladies all post. I know you enjoy wearing them even more than I enjoy looking at them, and I say congratulations for celebrating your engagement and marriage this way!
 
#41
missD - i live in san francisco and have a decent sized e-ring.. 2.5 tcw. it's a 2 ct. round center stone with pears on each side.. simiar in design to your ring actually :).. and i wear it with a 1 ctw prong set diamond band everyday... i don't notice ppl noticing it AS much here... because the e-rings here seem to be of the larger varierty in the city.. although it does attract some attention occassionally in places with especially good lighting like elevators haha.

oh and i went to Taiwan earlier this year.. and ppl majorly gawked at my ring everywhere we went.. my mom said only the UBER rich in taiwan.. have anything like my ring.. most ppl like love2golden said don't have diamond e-rings.. and those that did.. they were less than 1/2 ct. if that.

heh. we're so spoiled in the US.. 1 ct. and bigger seems like the everyday norm.. i have to remind myself that even the queen of england only has a 2 ct e-ring!!! ............. nevertheless i'm looking for an upgrade hahaha. more of a setting upgrade tho.. i want to add 2 ct. rounds.. 1 ct. on each side of my 2 ct. center stone. so i can get some major finger coverage!!!
 
#42
Middle East here - like noon said earlier, engagement rings, which look like western wedding bands, are worn on the right hand (men also wear engagement rings - usually just the wedding band, but worn on the right). At the wedding, you get the typical "large stone" ring, and both are moved to the left hand.

Both husband and myself are part American, so he proposed with the "large stone" ring, which I wore on my right hand till the wedding, where we added the band and moved both over to the left hand.

To be honest, so much jewelery is given to the bride at arab weddings, I switch up my left hand rings all the time or else I'd never get to wear half of what I received. I wear my wedding set daily, sometimes just going with the eternity band on the weekends - but when I dress up, I tend to switch both out for something blingy-er to match the outfit or mood. As long as I have something on the left finger.
 
#43
I am German and live in the Middle East

In germany the e-ring is worn on the left hand, the wedding band on the right (or both on the right of course). there is no custom, people do what they like.

in the ME women will always wear the combo - they are crazy about bling here so if you've got it, flaunt it.
 
#44
I'm Thai.

I always wear my plain platinum band and so does my husband. I would like to wear my e-ring too but I have to wear gloves at work (I'm a dentist.)

All of my married friends don't wear their e-rings (may be because they're dentists too.) Wedding bands are not Thai tradition. I just adopted it because I think it's cute. I had an engagement in the early morning and Thai traditional wedding right after that. My wedding reception was at lunch at my home, not evening party in a hotel. Quite strange comparing to my peers.

I'm thinking about getting an "everyday" diamond ring. Maybe it's eternity band or 1 ct solitaire to wear with my wedding band to add a blink on my finger.
 
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