My parents married in 1961, and both had rings (and my mother had an engagemetn ring as well, but the stone fell out one Christmas day, and we never found it, despite picking through the trash, etc.). My father was a carpenter, so he didn't wear his ring all the time, but he wore it fairly often, especially if they were going somewhere.

My parents married in '58, and Dad has a wedding ring that I've never seen him wear (on account metal and his skin failing to play nicely, plus him being a large old man now instead of a skinny young one).

What's the confusion? You give $30K+ plus worth of diamond to your girl. Later, she tags your finger with a G, you tag hers with another G, and you get to buy everthing.

Seems plain to me.

My dad has his grandfather's wedding ring. If it's his maternal grandfather, it's from 1920ish sweden, since they only got around to getting married because they were immigrating. It is unlikely that it's from the other side, since they were hardscrabble dirt (tundra?) farmers with very little sentimentality. That much gold totally would have been hocked for a cow or plow.

Hee--The Flying Spaghetti Monster will NOT be ignored!

Timelies all!

Happy Birthday DebetEsse!

Sheesh, now I feel bad for having a diamond engagement ring that wasn't an heirloom.(I told G I didn't need a diamond in my ring, but he wanted to be traditional. Nevermind that the tradition is only 100 years old .) My mom's engagement ring I think got reworked into a different ring for her. The stone from my paternal grandmother's ring was turned into a pendant and given to me on my 16th birthday.(Grandmom died when I was 11)

t blingvisible

It's "invisibling", Gus. Get it right.

My mom has a wedding ring only, but it's not a band; it's got lots of littler diamonds surrounding a bigger center one.

Dad never had a wedding ring; still doesn't, but he wanted a star sapphire ring that Mom got for him a few years before he retired. He never wore it to work cause he was a telephone lineman and his hands were always trashed. He always has wanted an emerald, and a couple of years ago, Mom bought a loose stone and had it put in a pinkie ring. (She works PT at a jewelery store.) He wears it all the time.

When mom and dad die, I'm cool with my sister getting mom's wedding ring, regardless of its greater monetary value, cause I don't like diamonds, and I don't love the setting. But I get dad's pinkie ring.

Sis and I will have a slapdown on Mom's opals and I get the pearls or the little bitch DIES.

(And in case someone thinks I'm being mercenary, all the jewelry divvying is something of a running in-joke in my family. Daddy is pissed that law requires him to be buried in a casket or cremated; he's prefer the PlainS Indian corpse-in-a-tree method, and barring that, wanted to be sealed up in a cheap length of PVC pipe, to the dulcet strains of "Another One Bites the Dust." Seriously. I will play that song at his funeral. I don't care who is offended, cause Mom, S. and I won't be.)

My mother irritably tells us that one of us had better wise up and start liking gold, because that's what she's got to pass onto us.