I have a 1ct moissanite and 2 3mm white sapphires in my ring, and the bonus was that custom designing my own ring was still _drastically_ cheaper than getting a diamond: http://i.imgur.com/H3jDulz.jpg

I think I can now (by that I mean in the future) justify this by not having diamonds. Yours looks amazing.

Funny you say that. My partner got a custom band of his own too (engraved and anodized titanium): https://i.imgur.com/c08efTs.jpg

The diamond ring he was "supposed" to get me (according to my family and friends and DeBeers) is easily over 10x the cost of my ring+band plus his band combined - even without comparison shopping. We spent that excess money on a 2 week honeymoon, most of our wedding expenses and splurges, and cat food. I recently just added the two white sapphires (a nod to our currently baking bun) for pocket change too. No regrets. I get my shiny bling-desires fulfilled at bargain bin prices.

Thanks for writing. I did not want to buy a diamond :)

This is a great description that captures the social pressure aspect quite well. Guys aren't the ones wearing the ring everywhere!

I believe that the bride-only thing is US-only, or (maybe) limited maybe limited to ex-british regions, but it's definitely not universal, and definitely not a thing in latinamerica (diamonds aren't a thing here either) or a great deal of europe.

Usually the only jewel men wear is their wedding band.

Agree grandparent comment truly made me understand the woman's side of thing. It's easy for men to dismiss them as being irrational.

I am glad that diamond engagements aren't a thing in India. (Although in place of it we have a ton of other retarded customs). Gold is pretty much the standard here - which is actually quite practical. It makes a good liquid asset, holds its value, stays as an insurance and safety during hard times.

I prefer this strength in women - as it is not an isolated feature of personality. Life is too short to spend it with someone that shallow, unless that is exactly what you want/need.

And yes, if it's not clear, women requesting diamond rings as statement of true love (that's just not true and won't make the relationship any better), or blabbing about 3-salary-worth of diamonds... meh, I say you can do better.

I really hate to be a random person on the internet giving personal advice but... diamonds being "non-negotiable" seems like a huge, glowing, neon warning sign. Don't be surprised to find out a bunch of other things are non-negotiable if you divorce.

There was no alternative before this article. Cubic is cheap and tacky. Diamonds are overpriced and awful. Lab diamonds not much better. This article has a real alternative. That's a huge contribution to all diamond haters everywhere.

Why the fact it's cheap makes it tacky? There's plenty of good CZ jewelry and 99% of people won't know the difference with diamonds or moissanite if you don't tell them. Moassanite is good, but still way too much expensive than it should be. It would be fun if we chose homes same way - "Oh, that big house with large lot, fireplace, etc is perfect in every way for us, but it's 30 times cheaper than that another almost-the-same house that was built by the company which enslaves people and makes them die while building those houses. We will only have to be in mortgage for it for 1 year, so we won't buy it." Why don't use left over money to buy some trip or something like that? I don't understand why regular working people want to wear half a car on a finger...

That does sound better, spending the saved money on 4x$2000 amazing trips together, or 2x$4000 SUPER trips. Priceless memories that would easily be higher value than a nice rock.

There was always the alternative: I don't care about rings and diamonds and such BS, I care about us being together.

Which is not that uncommon (even in the US) as people here make it out to be. Not everybody goes for a big wedding either -- or even a wedding at all.

Also, as another commenter pointed out, "non negotiable" (as in: I want my diamond ring or we're not getting married") and "no alternative" (as in: we both want to buy the ring, and don't care for it being expensive, but there's no good replacement for a real diamond) is a different thing.

CZ is a bit less durable than diamond (8 vs 10 mohs hardness, some porosity), but it's so cheap that you can have the stone replaced if it starts to show signs of wear.

Moissanite is a very fine simulant, but to my mind, the main advantage over CZ is that it's more expensive. CZ is implausibly cheap for a high-quality diamond simulant.

You know, you don't need an engagement ring to get married. Much less one with a shiny stone of any kind.

You also need a partner who wants to get married to you. Where does HN get it's perfectly compatible partners from? A difference in opinion is not unexpected - not everyone is equally pragmatic. Also,things that are considered "deal-breakers" are far from universal.

Truth is women in our culture are still somewhat of a status symbol. My wife is essentially perfectly compatible with me that was achieved by not simply selecting the most physically attractive person who would marry me but instead finding someone who actually is a decent human being. Her ring cost under 50 dollars. She wants me to spend the short time we all have on earth with her, not working to buy her shiny rocks, a overvalued house or an expensive car so she can impress her friends. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My best friend is a tattoo artist. He said the top two coverups he does are for:

a. band names

b. significant other initials or names

He joked that its practically a harbinger of a failed relationship since most are back in his chair within 12-18 months to get them covered up.

What does this mean to you? Why isn't it true of silicon carbide?

I find it odd to see the simultaneous complaint that one clear cubic crystal is "cheap", but another is "overpriced". What do you want the price to be? Why?

With a diamond, you are not getting value (except in some rare circumstances involving unusual stones).

It's just a little ridiculous to read 3 sentences a stranger types and tells them they are going to get a divorce. Bad form as far as unsolicited advice goes.

Hey why are you offended? I was trying to help! You could be gracious about it.

The guy apologized and maybe he thought his advice was good. I admit though it was blunt and the part about divorce was rude.

For one thing, I never said he would get divorced. I said "if you get divorced".

For another thing, if you are going to divulge details of your personal relationship online, you should not be surprised or get upset if someone comments about it. If it's a sensitive issue for you - keep it to yourself. This isn't your journal.

I take my apology back. I did absolutely nothing wrong, and people seriously need to develop thicker skin.

You should heed your own words...

It's deeply ingrained in Western culture. Think about it like eating dogs. There's no rational reason not to use dogs for meat, but most Westerners would throw a hissy fit rather than eat dog meat.

So don't assume the prospective bride is unreasonable. In fact, assume the opposite, as she was able to read a rational explanation of the issues with diamonds, and change her mind.

It's only "deeply ingrained" in the US. In most of the Western Europe etc it's negligible.

And from what I've read it wasn't some deep rooted tradition in the US either -- it took a lot of advertising from diamond companies to instill it...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how...

It's all nonsense. None of it makes sense.

Now I wonder if that Diamond is a chance event ("nonsense") or correlation artifact from the search algorithm ("sense").

[1]: http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/costello...

On deeply nested comments, if it hasn't been long since the post was made you have to click the "permalink" ("XX minutes ago" or "XX hours ago") link to reply. I think the extra step is to help slow down flamewars ("do I really need to reply to this comment, right now?".

If this is the intention, it seems like it'd make more sense to throw up roadblocks to only someone else who's in the comment chain, rather than to someone who hasn't been involved at all and is just chiming in. Usually, those flamewars are long chains of comments between two people.

It's not tough, just very lean and thus prone to overcooking. Honestly it tasted pretty good, I thought it was grass fed beef.

Venison is a lot gamier. I only like it in stews.

> and they're not raised as livestock

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_farm#Deer_Farming_in_New_... -- not quite as many of them as sheep there, but you definitely see a bunch of deer farms just driving around.

In fact, in my experience you're more likely to see New Zealand venison in a US store than US venison, because of the above laws prohibiting transportation.

Yes there is, unless you would make the same argument for having sex with relatives - which philosophers have rationalized against for thousands of years (way before the genetic consequences were understood). Morality is a rationalization. Dogs are genetically predisposed to be man's best friend - friends don't get eaten.

Diamonds don't even come close, there is no positive moral argument - just a fairly recent PR campaign.

I take it you've never met a cow, horse, pig, chicken or tame deer. Most animals will befriend humans if you are patient enough.

This is dependent on the relationship between the two people. If one party is strongly against the concept of diamonds and DeBeers, then yes, it'll be an issue. However, your parent commenter might be more moderate, or just doesn't care that much that their partner agrees with this particular societal pressure.

Did she say "I must have a diamond that costs a minimum of $15k, or else I'm leaving you"?

Or does she get kind of sad & blue & disengaged when he pitches alternatives, because she dreamed of a diamond ring as a kid?

The later is quite understandable. Even if you think diamonds are silly, it's a matter of fact women in the USA grow up surrounded by diamond culture.

I'm somewhat recently divorced now, but one good thing about my ex is that she was never superficial like this. She was perfectly happy to get a $70 Titanium wedding band, and loved how lightweight it was, and never wanted a silly gemstone on her hand. We did get her a couple other rings with gemstones (much cheaper ones, and prettier too; I think one was Tanzanite?), for wearing at special occasions, but wearing a gemstone ring every day is impractical and dumb really; it's just going to get in your way, and worse it's easy to take it off and then lose it. I knew a guy once whose wife dropped her $10k diamond ring down the drain while doing dishes! (No, they didn't recover it.)

Or may be, just may be, wanting diamond is just normal for some women, and it doesn't indicate whether she is a good couple or not.

if that's an US norm, so what, it's still wrong on many levels. it ain't like that here in europe. the last ex-gf that mentioned 3-salary rule for it was exactly the type you should never, ever marry, no matter what person you are. my fiancee on the other hand is happy with 70 euro ring since relationship is about everything else, but this.

if woman sets this as non-negotiable standard to get married, there is no love from her in relationship, just pure calculation and she treats her counterpart like an idiot. simple as that.

If I really want a sports car, I don't expect my fiance to buy it for me. If I want a cellphone, I don't expect my girlfriend to buy it for me and pay for the service.

uh... well, apparently it was negotiable, since all he had to do was find a suitable alternative and send her a link to a convincing article on the internet.

We'd been looking for used rings as an alternative - hence, thank you very much for writing this, you just saved me and my wife several thousand dollars.

I don't think this is a universal "in America" thing. Maybe in some parts of the country, but here in the northeast it seems like it's none of their business; I can't imagine asking someone to explain it, and I would think someone who did ask was being awfully nosy. FWIW my wife has a diamond ring which she almost never wears, and I can't remember anyone ever asking about it. My parents wear plain gold wedding bands only, and I've never heard anyone ask them about it either.

Sorry about Trump, BTW.

We're much happier with $20 disposable rings (both of us have lost one already); no fear of loss or damage and it gets the point across fine- hell, when I proposed to her I didn't even have a ring, we would have done it this way in the first place.

Interesting, I'm from Europe and I'd be curious to know at which point exactly did diamond rings replace gold wedding bands as the "official marriage signs" in the States. Wedding bands are still quite popular over here in Europe, hopefully they don't get replaced any time soon (for one thing, gold actually has some intrinsic value compared to diamonds).

They didn't. Wedding bands are still the "official marriage sign". Diamond engagement rings are extremely common, however, and it's very common for American women to continue wearing their engagement ring alongside their wedding band.

(As with my wife and my mother, it's definitely not unheard of for women to wear just the wedding band either).

The reason: stones can snag on clothing, rip an eyeball, snap off, attract violence, or scratch something you care about.

I went with my birthstone (Arizona Peridot, cheap and pretty) from my grandma for the engagement. My wife thought that was sweet. She keeps it in a drawer somewhere as a memento, and wears a plain gold band every day.

I suppose I might prefer titanium over gold, for weight reasons, but the gold is OK.

That's one thing out of that marriage that didn't cost me much... (Actually, it was a very amicable divorce; marrying someone who isn't a selfish person fixated on superficial stuff like diamond rings is, I think, a good way to make sure that if the marriage does have to end, that it'll be as painless a transition as possible.)

The engagement ring is fancy. The wedding band is plain. The wedding band is always worn. The engagement ring could be worn, but that is optional. My mom wore hers often enough that it and the wedding band ground each other away and eventually had to be soldered together. So you don't have to always keep the engagement ring in a box, but you might, and wearing it is totally optional. The wedding ring pretty much never comes off.

Good lord, people do this? People spend ten thousand dollars on a ring? Fuck. When we got engaged, we shopped together and I bought her a black opal ring. Diamond was never on the menu, so I never even looked at their prices. I knew diamonds were expensive, but I had no idea the extent to which people were getting suckered.

No, of course not - why would you think that? Those 'high priced' rings are like the wax fruit in a greengrocer, or plastic lobsters at the fishmongers - just there for show...!

Back in the real world, people can actually spend hundreds of thousands, even millions, on jewelry.

In Sweden at least it seems to be quite common to wear both rings. However it also seems to be more common to have inset stones, rather than one that sticks out. I've also seen several people who buy the engagement ring and wedding band together as a matching set to make sure they work together. (something which to me always felt rather presumptuous)

- Lab-grown diamonds are purer, more perfect crystals, cheaper, and better than mined diamonds in every way. (ignoring the market manipulation factor, which I'm not too knowledgeable about, except that I've heard big diamond companies do some shady things to keep prices high)

- Girls hate lab-grown diamonds because they consider them "artificial".

Also in your article, you don't seem to make such a distinction, so I'm wondering if your article is about lab-grown, mined, or both?

This is completely correct, although in the absence of De Beers mined diamonds would be cheaper. (Creating diamonds is technically quite difficult, but they are very common in nature.)

> Girls hate lab-grown diamonds because they consider them "artificial".

I can deny this. I collect synthetic cut gemstones. There are three types of common reactions:

1. "It looks fake."

2. "What are you going to do with it? What's the point?"

3. "Wow, it's beautiful!"

I've never seen someone who thought a gem was beautiful decide they'd been wrong after learning the stone was created. Girls might dislike synthetic diamonds in engagement rings because they think the symbolism is wrong; they don't dislike them in general.

> in your article, you don't seem to make such a distinction, so I'm wondering if your article is about lab-grown, mined, or both?

The OP is talking about lab-grown moissanite:

>> The big difference between moissanite and diamond is that moissanite can be manufactured reliably and efficiently in a laboratory. The result: flawless, brilliant gemstones at about 1/10th the cost of a comparable diamond.

FWIW, I agree that "science and the progress of human knowledge" isn't exactly the right symbolism for a wedding ring. But I do think it's better than "blood and oppression", at least given my personal views on marriage...

My wife was perfectly happy in particular with the environmental and ethical benefits. Also doesn't hurt that you can get a larger diamond that looks much better.

Give your girl the benefit of the doubt.

After researching, we figured out that we could sell our diamond (we only got about 60% of the original price back from a diamond broker) and buy a twice as large synthetic diamond and still save several thousand $.

There is only upside as far I can tell: it looks better (clarity), is bigger (no can tell the difference between a real and "fake" diamond), has fewer environmental and ethical externalities, and is cheaper.

Diamonds cannot be used, as there is no such thing as a new one. Certainly they can be damaged but that's totally different.

I figure if you buy something a billion years old and return it a few months later in exactly the same condition, if you can only get 60% back then you dramatically overpaid.

But you're still buying into the concept of the gifting of rings, when this is a recent phenomenon created by De Beer's. Unless they were European royalty, your great-great-grandparents did not exchange rings. Commoners did not have this custom until the twentieth century. When you suggest getting non-diamond rings, you perpetuate the expectation that people should exchange rings, continuing De Beer's advertising campaign.

My wife and I got married without exchanging any rings for this reason. I thought that I might need to explain my position on rings to friends and family, but we've never gotten so much as a comment about it.

(BTW, your link to the Atlantic article 404s.)

It really depends on the culture. Having the groom give the bride something of value is a quite old tradition for Jewish weddings, including "commoners" (read: all Jews, pretty much). A ring was in fact a quite common such gift going back a long way.

That said, if a ring is used in this case it must traditionally be a plain band with no stones; we're not talking diamond rings here.

Really looking forward to how jewelrs will use these now that moissanite is off patent and startups like the Diamond Foundry have interesting approaches as well. http://www.racked.com/2016/6/14/11872830/lab-grown-diamonds-...

After decades of glimpses into the practices of DeBeers, maybe now will be the time the public becomes fully aware

http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-b...

I spent a total of $500 to have a .75ct diamond set in a ring this way.

I recently bought a ring from Diamond Foundry after reading this: http://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown-... and related articles, and AFAICT no non-specialist can tell the difference.

There is also an interesting online company called My Trio Rings (http://www.mytriorings.com) that does conventionally mined diamonds but has, AFAICT, lower than average prices. I think one of their guys posts to HN sometimes.

Also, are other natural stones, e.g. sapphire, ruby, overpriced as well?

There's a spelling error in the article: lusterous -> lustrous.

You can hear how it's pronounced in this YouTube clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GFZKPQuAaw

Sol: No, it's a moissanite. Bad Boy Lincoln: A what-in-ite? Sol: A moissanite is an artificial diamond, Lincoln. It's Mickey Mouse, mate. Spurious. Not genuine. And it's worth... fuck-all.

:)

Then I saw Sol and Bad Boy Lincoln. I guess I'll watch Snatch tonight. For educational reasons.

After a while on HN you can figure which subjects they like, and which they don't. Diamond are yes subject. Another example could be Leonard Cohen. His recent departure has so much to do with technology or hacking as your toilet seat, but yet he was #1 for a long time...

[1] https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls...