How much are people generally paying for engagement rings in UK?

[-]

Playful_Acadia7003@reddit

A lot of people on here saying price doesn't matter are right in theory....

Depending on what/your partner want, there are some things I suggest considering. The price of gold has shot up significantly so if you want a gold ring, it'll cost (assuming you buy new). You also, presumably, want a ring that will last, so I also suggest investing, whatever that means for you and your budget.

You also don't want to fall into a trap of getting a cheaper stone to bring the cost down as you want one that lasts. If your partner isn't fussed about diamonds, I suggest sapphires. Emeralds are lovely but too soft.

I think it's worth considering a second hand ring if you want more bang for your buck. For reference my engagement ring in 2022 was £1750 and the exact same ring online is now £2250.

[-]

Strong_Roll5639@reddit

Mine was £250 I think. I wanted a silver one and saw it in a shop and loved it. Didn't care how much it was.

[-]

beneyh@reddit

Im paying around £2.5k ish for it. Saw the diamond on Saturday and got the quote yesterday so everything

[-]

luckyslife@reddit

£220 from Etsy. It’s gorgeous and I get compliments on it all the time.

[-]

fourbearants@reddit

My engagement ring was less than £200. I would feel uncomfortable wearing a very expensive piece of jewellery every day. Some people are obviously fine with it. Speak to your partner about what they really want.

[-]

rainaftermoscow@reddit

I wear a Pandora bowknot ring as my everyday engagement ring, because I'm terrified of damaging or losing the actual ring oh my god 😬 it only comes out for formal/fancy things. It's still nice to have though, but yeah my advice to everyone with an engagement ring over a certain price point is to get an everyday wear alternative. I have too many dogs and do way too much hiking to risk something happening.

[-]

wimpires@reddit

I think I paid about £1,900 for mine around 7vyears ago. There were plenty of good options in the £1-2k range. If you can afford less go less. If you can afford more, go more (if you want). Don't overstretch your budget.

Also, don't be diswayed by lab diamonds. They look better, are cheaper and don't involve child labour and other nasties.

[-]

West_Yorkshire@reddit

I'm going to interject, and say by other nasties you mean artificial price inflation right?

[-]

Doragan@reddit

Pretty much the same here. Think I was slightly lower, but there definitely seems/seemed to be heavy diminishing returns higher than that.

I liked https://www.diamondsfactory.co.uk for being able to toggle the different aspects of the ring/stone to see how it altered the cost, too.

Of course, nothing wrong with spending less on a ring, I know happy couples who have spent both much more and much less!

[-]

surfermark99@reddit

Went to a local jewler rather than a chain to find a ring I liked that I knew my wife would like. Found the perfect ring - it was pre-owned, 1 CT diamond with these beautiful .5ct pear shaped diamonds on the shoulders on a 24 carat gold band. I geeked out and looked up all about diamond cut and clarity so knew what I wanted to find. I know it's all a 'De Beers' con but meh.

£3250

I earned at the time ~£1800 a month after tax and deductions. Lived alone in a flat that I rented. Put a deposit on it and saved for a few months to pay for it.

My wife loves it but doesn't know how much it cost. It now gets covered in play doh, slime and all sorts of gunk that our wonderful children play with. Life is good.

I did it right for me, I'm not implying my way is right for anyone else but thought I'd give your question a full answer.

[-]

shiveryslinky@reddit

I think my husband paid about £2800 for mine about 12yrs ago. HOWEVER, knowing what I do now, I'd never opt for a natural diamond again.

[-]

Wandering-time@reddit

Paid c.£900 for a ring which was on offer and down from £2400 (supposedley).

It helped when my then girlfriend, now wife, literally showed me her phone screen and said "this engagement ring I've always liked is now on offer". Bought it that night and waited a few months before proposing, since I had something planned for that. Not sure how, but managed to guess the ring size correct as an added bonus.

[-]

Born-Wasabi8016@reddit

If your future wife cares how much you paid for an engagment ring you should think very carefully about wether you should be buying one or not.

[-]

Affectionate-Owl9594@reddit

DeBeers invented the “it should cost a month’s salary” thing as a marketing ploy in the 1930s. The type of ring your partner will like will impact cost. My engagement ring was >£2k and I didn’t like it, the style I wanted is usually about £300.

[-]

ReflexArch@reddit

I remember being told 3x your monthly salary 😂. No thanks.

[-]

ReflexArch@reddit

£ value is meaningless here given inflation since old purchases and wild variations in people's wealth.

At the time I did just under 1x my take home monthly pay.

[-]

Horror-Kumquat@reddit

Mine was my grandmother's. My mum knew I'd always liked it, so when he was about to propose, she gave it to him. Lovely ring, cost us nothing.

[-]

Live-Negotiation3743@reddit

£500. I chose my own and felt that amount was more than enough and gave me something I really loved.

[-]

Live-Negotiation3743@reddit

We both started our marriage debt free (wedding was less than £5000 all in). We’re both quite money conscious so it all felt reasonable.

[-]

love_in_october@reddit

We spent about £300 each on each other in 2023. Lovely rings, they're cheap because they're lab sapphires (but that's what we wanted, diamonds are not either of our thing and neither are blood gems).

[-]

ComfortableSpot6760@reddit

I’ve no idea as I was the one proposed to BUT as a woman who usually, semi jokingly has ‘high standards’ in terms of clothing, materialistic stuff etc, that I genuinely didn’t care less how much my engagement ring cost, or if it looked expensive for that matter. Obviously I showed him the gemstone shape that I had a preference for (I had a preference for oval) but if he bought me a cushioned diamond ring because that’s all he could’ve afforded I would’ve said yes. It sounds cheesy but it really is about the love of the relationship and not the price tag. As long as you’re both healthy then you are wealthy!

NB - also when planning the wedding try and not get caught up with ‘average cost of wedding in the UK’ and use it as a benchmark… I became obsessed with having the ‘perfect’ wedding (which is contradicting my engagement ring views) but I guess I wanted it perfect for all of our guests. My poor father in law paid half of it, and my poor husband sold his beloved ‘vintage’ car to pay off the debt for a celebration that lasted one day. When in hindsight, the most special part of the wedding to me was the walking down the aisle in the church which was the cheapest thing of the whole thing costing only £600…. All the after party shenanigans was fun, but a waste and definitely not worth financial hardship!

[-]

da316@reddit

luckily my partner doesn't like diamonds. paid 1k a few years ago. saved up and was as much as I could afford at the time.

[-]

Disastrous_Yak_1990@reddit

It’s around £1500 for anything decent.

Goes without saying it’s whatever you can afford and care about, but a decent size and quality goes for that.

[-]

sparklybeast@reddit

If you're looking for a diamond ring, sure. But clearly not the only option.

[-]

sparklybeast@reddit

I've been married twice. The first ring cost approximately £200. We didn't bother for my second wedding.

[-]

thighvalue@reddit

I've had 2, both of them lab diamonds.

The first one was almost £4000, and since it was lab the diamond was so big that it looked ridiculous and gaudy.

The second one is clocking in at £2800, and could've been cheaper but there were certain details that we wanted.

I sold the first one btw and got 190£ for the gold. You don't get anyone for the diamonds

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

It looks like you've written the pound sign (£) after the number 190, but it should be written before the number like this: £190.

^(I am an annoying bot, so please don't be offended.)

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[-]

Away-Classroom-3389@reddit

Mine was about £1700 for a white gold ring with a 1ct lab princess cut diamond with shoulder diamonds but i would’ve accepted a 50p gumball machine ring

[-]

WhalingSmithers00@reddit

Let's see Paul Allen's engagement ring

[-]

Away-Classroom-3389@reddit

🤣🤣🤣

[-]

painful_butterflies@reddit

I paid what I had, ten years ago but we were struggling even then, if memory serves I spent about £50.

We knew she had an heirloom coming as her actual wedding ring, so wears that, the "crappy" engagement ring (her birth stone) is added into a extra deep photo frame display, with her wedding bouquet and our favourite pictures of the day.

[-]

GooseVirus@reddit

I paid £70 and around £100 for some nice rings from Etsy (etsy now has a ton of AI and temu shops now so have to be careful) We chose the rings ourselves.

[-]

Plannet_Depressed@reddit

Like 25 quid per ring?
Who cares if they aren't "traditional" they look cool af They're black with a middle layer of [persons preferred colour] in the middle

[-]

L1amalicker@reddit

£260 as I got it when I was a poor student 12 years ago. She still wears it to this day

[-]

TheGoose995@reddit

About £1600. I chose by design more than price, but I also didn’t want my fiance to be scared to wear it from worrying if it got stolen or lost. Obviously that could still happen but probs wouldn’t have gone over £3k

[-]

WheyJordan@reddit

£1500 for a lab grown diamond

[-]

LobsterAstronaut@reddit

Mine was around £500, previous one was £80. It’s less about money and more about meaning and it being something I want to wear everyday. Ex partner spent thousands on a ring he designed himself (gross) and I hated I and couldn’t bear to wear it. My £500 one scares me that I’ll damage or lose it but I love wearing it and looking at it, even if I still class it as too expensive.

[-]

Relevant_Swimming511@reddit

What was wrong with him designing it himself?

[-]

GovernmentNo2720@reddit

£3,500 for my husband for mine

[-]

Eucalyptus90@reddit

My husband paid like 40€ which is what he could afford at the time. He is very peculiar to put it somehow and he did not buy an engagement ring lol. I still said yes. That being said, unless he would’ve had a lot of money, I would’ve preferred for him to use that money (a months salary) towards a house, the wedding or a honeymoon.

I’ve heard of other women that have turned down the guy and asked him for a better/bigger/pricier ring, twice, guy did that and they are happily married for 20y+! So I guess everybody and every couple is different!!

[-]

Extra-Particular2508@reddit

£600. I got 50% off. My partners idea. Not mine.

[-]

BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit

I believe the somewhat “traditional” ballpark figure is to spend around a months wages…

With that said, there’s so much pressure on how much to spend and keeping up appearances and all that bollocks…

I think the most important thing is that the couple are both singing from the same hymn sheet with their expectations… that really is the most crucial part of all… if one has constant ideas above their station and the other is a bit more sensible then there might be a problem…

[-]

New_Crow_8206@reddit

3 months salary was the De Beers marketing.

[-]

BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit

We went to Cartier but good to know 🙂

[-]

txe4@reddit

About £50 to get something I'd got in a drawer (which was itself only silver, plain, and worth little more than melt value of about £20) cleaned up and sized.

And we were top 10% for income and wealth in the UK at the time.

Pissing money up the wall on jewellery that will barely be worn is not a use of resources either of us felt comfortable with.

If you have a mortgage and are spending 4 digits on a piece of jewellery, your priorities are a hell of a mess.

[-]

Revolutionary-Dot653@reddit

IIRC about 15 years ago I spent about £1200-£1400, or about a months wages.

I bought the stone from a diamond wholesaler and had the ring made for the stone. I picked the cut that she liked and a "high quality" colour, clarity etc etc.

At the time this worked out greatly in my favour as the same quality stone was multiple times more expensive on the high street.

Nowadays I'm not so sure that spending a lot on diamonds are worth it given the quality of synthetic stones and the whole "blood diamonds" thing.

However, my wife wears the ring everyday so although it was expensive for me at the time it IMO has been good value.

[-]

ross-dirext-words137@reddit

It what you want to spend. Got to be careful of metals though as your going to be wearing this allot and you want it to be comfortable

[-]

-Aqua-Lime-@reddit

It'll depend a lot on style - I like eternity-style bands, which usually run a good bit cheaper than more traditional engagement rings (mine was about £250), whereas the traditional style ones with larger diamonds can run to a couple of thousand depending on the size of the stone.

Find out what kind of style and what sort of stones she likes, and look that up on a couple of different jewellers' websites, and that should give you at least a ballpark idea of what to expect.

[-]

BellaTheToady@reddit

My husband paid £17 it is my favourite ring ever!!

[-]

Short-Shopping3197@reddit

The function of an engagement ring was essentially a sign of commitment and offering some insurance against opportunity cost if you’ve turned down other suitors. Traditionally it would be an amount you could afford but would be painful to lose. Of course you can spend whatever you like, the price is nothing compared to what it represents. Best thing to do I think is take one of their friends or a family member out with you to some shops and judge any expectations based on that.

[-]

Chibi_Panda2@reddit

Mine was about £500, was part of a matching set that cost £1000. I could have had a more expensive one if I’d wanted (my fiancé let me choose my own) but I really liked the one I settled on

[-]

alfienicho@reddit

Couple of things I'd say, don't go to a high street, find a reputable independent jeweller, use the high street for inspo if it helps.

Don't get a natural diamond, they don't hold their value, are really expensive and of course come with a whole host of morale problems.

Go for a lab grown, they are real diamonds in every way, they are clearer, cleaner and much much cheaper.

It will look fantastic, won't have broke the bank, isn't tainted with the blood of child workers and your Mrs will be happy (hopefully).

[-]

morebob12@reddit

£8k a few years ago from Hatton Garden

[-]

Froggiieeee@reddit

Paid around £400 for the one for my fiancee and she loves it - getting married next year!

[-]

Wonderful-Advisor-18@reddit (OP)

Congrats!:)

[-]

Froggiieeee@reddit

Thank you! Genuinely just get what you can afford! Don't go into debt over something like this, the right woman won't want that.

[-]

GymAndMusic@reddit

I paid £5,400 - but it’s all relative to what you can afford

[-]

New_Crow_8206@reddit

£8,000 through a guy that owed me a favour in Hatton Garden. Valued at £13k. High Street price (Beaverbrooks) was £21k for the equivalent stone.

The guy selling it to me even asked why so much when I could go lower quality and cheaper. I will tell you what I told him, because she is worth it.

[-]

This-Draft797@reddit

Price doesn’t matter. It matters that you have listened to the style and type they want, gold or silver band, what kind of cut, lab grown or mined, modern or old fashioned!

[-]

One-Program6244@reddit

I got engaged back in 1999. The saying back then was a months salary. I paid a bout a months take-home salary. Over the years I've heard it go up to to 2 months salary. Basically they wanted more money.

Basically ignore the fluff and the peer pressure. Buy something with an expenditure that both of you are happy with.

[-]

runew0lf@reddit

£60, a tungsten steel dr who tardis ring for my now wife with a custom message inside (as you wish)

Went down a treat, she still wears it to this day even now we're married!

[-]

Spadders87@reddit

Mine was £300 from a second hand jewellers in 2015.

[-]

Ornery-Wasabi-1018@reddit

Look at what you can comfortably afford.

Mine was bought a long time ago, so value won't mean anything. But Google tells me a similar ring is about 2k today. For some people, that would be far to much to spend. Some would spend much more. I wouldn't change the ring (or the husband!)

[-]

OkContribution6454@reddit

I paid about £2k about... fuck... 20 years ago, but it was from Tiffanys.

Honest advice would be dont pay more than £500 these days, its what it symbolises that is most important.

Good luck and have fun.

[-]

3a5ty@reddit

£1600 for me, take home was £2100 at the time but I paid over 6 months interest free.

[-]

SteSteB@reddit

I paid what I could afford. Which at the time was nothing, and she still agreed to marry me even without a ring. I didn't get my wife an engagement ring until the eve of our wedding. And even then I paid the princely sum of £400.

Pay what you can afford should be the general rule in my opinion.

[-]

When replying to submission/post please make genuine efforts to answer the question given. Please no jokes, judgements, etc. If a post is marked 'Serious Answers Only' you may receive a ban for violating this rule.
Don't be a dick to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
This is a strictly no-politics subreddit!

Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.