Friday, October 21, 2011

Your Turn

While looking through photos for Random Photos I saw one of Karina Smirnoff where she is wearing her engagement ring. She says it is just postponed. I think it ends soon. Also this week Crystal Harris sold her engagement ring she got from Hef. So, my question is this. If an engagement ends do you give the ring back? Do guys want the ring back? What happens if you are have spent money on the wedding already? Dress? What do you do?

40 comments:

Rita said...

Give the ring back. When someone proposes, you accept by wearing the ring. When you break up the engagement, you also accept by giving back the ring. No matter the cost.

Cathy said...

I think it depends on who calls it off. If the bride calls it off, she should return the ring; if the groom calls it off, he shouldn't expect it back.

iheartjacksparrow said...

I thought that legally speaking, an engagement ring is a gift in contemplation of marriage, and if the marriage doesn't occur, the ring goes back to (presumably) the man.

ForSure said...

Yes, I thought that was the rule. If the woman ends it, give the ring back. If the man ends it, keep the ring. Personally, if a man broke his engagement to me, I wouldn't want to keep it. I might want to shove it down his throat and get satisfaction knowing that he'll have to recover it from his own poo in a few days. ;)

Rita said...

FS - hope the rock is big enough to hurt coming out:)

cheesegrater15 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RocketQueen said...

I've had a broken engagement. Venue and honeymoon were booked, dress was half made and half paid for. I felt like our initial separation was my fault/decision, so I gave him the ring back and got as much as I could back for the honeymoon and the dress (I had paid for both). Not sure what he was able to get back on the venue booking.

WRT Hef & Crystal - he told the world he wanted her to keep the ring, so what she chooses to do with it is her choice.

Rita said...

RQ - new picture with profile?

And how are the pregnancy hunger apple brittle pangs going?

Merlin D. Bear said...

For what it's worth, I was taught if the bride breaks the engagement then she returns the ring, if the groom breaks the engagement, the bride keeps the ring.

RocketQueen said...

Rita - yep! I had a Maori tattoo done of my family history last summer, and the new profile photo is for the All-Blacks, who are going to kick some French ass and reclaim that World Rugby Cup Final this weekend :)

All is well, thank you! Just thinking about what to go eat now that you mention it! Hmm...

cheesegrater15 said...

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!


GO ALL BLACKS!!!!

FUCKING HOT BASTARDS!!!

Rita said...

RQ - Must be those chocolate dresses in the Randoms.

Very nice tattoo btw, and AM ALL FOR the All-Blacks! Those beasts are going to kick ass.

AMD said...

Protocol I believe is if you call it off, give the ring back. If he calls it off, you keep it, unless the ring is an heirloom of his family, in which case it goes back to him (doesn't have too, but that is the "proper" thing to do). Also, if he calls it off, one of the reasons I was told for not returning the ring is that the former bride-to-be can sell it in order to recoup the losses she/her family have likely incurred in the course of planning the wedding (dress, deposits on caterer, band, venue, florist etc.). I know a gal to whom this happened a few years ago - he called it off mere weeks before the wedding! The invitations had been addressed and everything.

Ms Cool said...

I'll tell you what I did. My fiance called our wedding off. I spent money on reserving the reception, invitations and my dress. I called it even and kept the ring.

I had the ring for years in a drawer until I met my husband. When we got married I used the stone in my wedding ring and saved some dough. I'm not superstitious about reusing the stone.

RocketQueen said...

Ah Vicki and Rita - if you know your All Blacks, then you must be familiar with my next ex-husband, Sonny Bill Williams!? That boy gives me the vapors, I SWEAR!

Sherry said...

If you dump him, you give back the ring and vice versa. Then you have it out in a different mounting and enjoy it for the rest of your life.

LuckyLadyAfterall said...

I had a broken engagement, too. 12 hours before the wedding, he backed out. I had already paid for the wedding and all the various vendors (myself, I might add-- should have been a sign!) He actually asked for the ring back!! I told him I would gladly return it after he paid me back for the cost of the wedding. Shockingly, he never got the ring back.
For what its worth, I did discuss it with an attorney- it was given as a birthday gift and he was the one breaking the agreement, both of which entitled me to keep it. I'd have preferred being reimbursed for the wedding.

Sherry said...

"put"

General said...

when i called off my engagement, i gave the ring back.... no point in keeping it, it just makes it hard to move on.

Bit dams said...

imho...

i think if its a family ring it goes back no matter what. otherwise, she breaks it off; she gives it back. he breaks it off she get to keep it. but, i think if i was engaged and he called it off i'd be so heart broken i wouldn't want it, so i'd likely give it back.

Bit dams said...

^^ OMG luckylady. 12 hours before? so sorry that happened. what a meanie.

HudsonJoe said...

@ME
I think you make the correct point about a family piece. Traditionally there should be a cash offer of the value of that family piece in return.

Dishtlk said...

I'm a wedding and event planner and for what its worth @ME got it right (as did a few other above), according to tradition at least. But i also agree with @ME that I wouldn't want it no matter how it went down.
My common law partner was engaged before. He was the one who called it off. we don't really talk about it, it was so long ago, but now I'm curious what happened to the ring!?

Dishtlk said...

Also, side note -- I had a friend whose wedding was called off just a week or so before invites were set to go out. She's decided to keep her dress and use it down the road. As she put it, "Its the dress i love, it has nothing to do with him." Fair I guess, but I'm too supersticious. Everything would have to go!

LuckyLadyAfterall said...

I didn't keep my dress. There was no way I wouldn't think of him no matter how much it was my dress that I loved. I wound up donating it to a charity that provided bridal clothes to couples that couldn't afford to get married. The idea of some bride, happy to get whatever help she could, being handed this gorgeous designer gown and feel like a princess on HER day made me shed some tears of happiness for a change. I would never have felt that way about my dress after what happened...

califblondy said...

Hmmm, I've got a collection going so I don't want to ruin a good thing. I know I probably should have returned them and if anybody would have taken me to court to force the issue I would have returned them. But, for now I'll keep them. I love the rings, just not the guys so much.

Unknown said...

I gave my ring back.

MadLyb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadLyb said...

I gave it back - the diamond was so small I wouldn't have been able to hock it anyway. (I kid!) I'm glad I didn't marry him. If a guy abruptly breaks an engagement - by all means, keep the ring. Then again, it suddenly seems weird that the guy is the one who buys the rings and the woman's family pays for the wedding. Isn't that kind of outdated? I'm going to have to rethink all of this. It's another one of those feminist things where we women have to be careful not to screw ourselves. Yet again.

Amy in MI said...

I've given all my rings back, and if this one doesn't work out (gotta feeling) its' going back too.

And Brad Penny so doesn't seem Karina's type..except for he has money.

Henriette said...

The one who breaks up with the other should allow the other to keep the ring. I got to keep my cubic.

Henriette said...

My bum called off about three months before the wedding, and I got rid of the dress and everything associated with it. Just bad memories for me.

amazonblue said...

I worked with a very shrewd and successful woman whose fiance broke their engagement. She sold the ring and kept the money. A few months later they reconsiled and he had to buy her a new ring.
They're still together and have a child, but you know who rules the roost in that family.

KittensRUs said...

I believe that by law, if you break off the engagement, you have to return the ring. If the other party does, there is no such obligation.

Upside Downunder said...

All Blacks?! Please god no. I think it is god's cruel joke to have me cheering the French.

Wil said...

I would have loved to have gotten an engagement ring. Really hate I never did, frankly. Shallow and probably lame as hell .. but what can I say .. I am shallow and lame as hell. It irks me none the less that no one ever cared enough to give me a ring. It also irks me I will die never being married to someone I am madly in love with and happy to be married to. But .. that isn't the question .. now it it!

Okay .. engagements .. two .. one broken .. one should have been. First one, I had only gotten as far as the dress .. gorgeous .. $5000 in 1985 dollars. I ended up selling it for $4500. No ring .. he was supposed to be getting one from his Grandmother in Montana, but it never happened. But, if he had given me one, I would have given it back. I guess I see that as the symbol of a broken dream and who wants to keep that. Maybe if I had ever gotten one that was super nice .. I would have a different attitude .. but I kinda doubt it.

elspeth said...

The language that iheartjacksparrow set forth is the same language i learned, i.e., a "gift in contemplation of marriage...." goes back to the giver. I haven't checked it, but that's old common law, and who knows what precedents have been set in recent case law?

Who wants to keep anything from an S.O.B. who calls it off? On the other hand, who wants to "eat" a bunch of expenses incurred in contemplation of marriage if HE calls it off? Try to be adults, and make the damages as equal as possible.

And be still my heart [and other parts] -- Between Invictus and Sonny Bill, i've totally become a rugby fan....

EmEyeKay said...

I just sold my engagement ring. We married, we divorced, and I sold the ring. If we'd broken up before the wedding, I'd have given it back, absolutely.

EmEyeKay said...

Oh and, btw, that's how I have internet at home again. Not that I got much money for that ring, but it was enough to pay a couple months of internet!

Lelaina Pierce said...

I thInk out depends on the circumstances but I'd akways heard what Cathy said.

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