Engagement rings vs. Wedding rings ?
I recently (January 14th, '98) got asked by my girlfriend whether I wanted
to get engaged to her. After giving the right/obvious answer, she told me
that we should go and look for engagement rings.
Well, by now I am 'ringed' with a golden ring with her name and the date of
the engagement in it.
The thing I'm wondering about is the wedding: Do these engagement rings
'automatically' become wedding rings? In that case, shouldn't they have the
date of the wedding inscribed instead of the engagement date?
FYI, we're talking about Norway here. I moved here only recently so I have
little/no knowledge of Norwegian customs etc. (Not that I know a lot about
the customs in the Netherlands, where I originally come from, but anyway...)
Any info on customs about wedding and/or engagement rings are welcome!
I am not sure if the Norwegian customs are the same as the Swedish
(but I'd consider it quite likely) but here's how it works in Sweden.
When you get engaged both the man and the woman gets an engagement ring
(most commonly a plain gold band).
Inside that ring they get the first name of the partner and the engegment
date engraved.
When they get married the woman gets another ring (this one might have
a small diamond set in it) while the man most commonly doesn't get one.
Inside the womans wedding ring (and the mans engagement ring, I think)
the date of the wedding and their initials are engraved.
Well, that depends. If you want to get a different ring for the wedding, then
you can by all means do so, tradition or not (heck, me proposing and my fiance
wearing the band I bought certainly was against US tradition...). And at that
point, you'd inscribe it with the wedding date. Adn you could choose a thin
second ring and solder them together.
All the more reason to jsut be yourself! :) Have you asked your fiancee about
this? She may have a strong preference, or not.
Personally, I'm getting a rock and a wrap for my wedding ring, so it'll be
wrap-rock-ring from my hand out toward my fingertips. And engraving the middle
one.