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Diamonds Suck (2006)

diamondssuck.com

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Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#131

Post by Antimachides »

charlesdm wrote: post #6
isostatic wrote: post #4

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.val…

Not everything is about money though. Want to have an extravagant wedding? Fine. Want something basic? Also fine. Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty. That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.

Not fine with me. If a girl wanted a diamond ring and/or and extravagant wedding I'd dump her. Materialistic, low IQ and shallow. Though that's what most people are, I suppose.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#132

Post by 5555624 »

tzaman wrote: post #26
mysterydip wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume peer pressure of some sort. When my now wife was telling all her friends she was engaged, the first thing they all asked was "let me see the ring!"

Must be cultural differences then - nobody around here (Central Europe) cares or asks about rings.

When my ex and I got engaged, in Waterford, Ireland, all of her friends asked to see the ring and turn it around her finger. It was some sort of tradition.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#133

Post by empath75 »

isostatic wrote: post #4

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.val…

I paid for my own wedding. My wife took the first pass at planning it. We priced out her dream wedding. It was close to $35k. My wife, bless her heart, hates spending money, so it didn’t take much to convince her to dial back expectations.

We started googling for ‘state park weddings’ and found a great park an hour outside of town on the waterfront with a barn. It cost us $500 to book it for the day.

We tracked down the wedding planner from one of the weddings there on instagram. She had only done the one wedding for her friend and didn’t know if she wanted to do it for a living. She offered to do it for us for almost nothing. She completely blew us away, making handmade decorations, and even emceeing for us. We ended up giving her a 100% tip and still feel like we underpaid. We didn’t get a DJ, we just used Spotify. We hired a photography student that was a friend of a friend to do the pictures. We got a roadside bbq joint to cater. I think we spent $3500 for everything including the wedding dress and photographer.

We used the savings to do an around the world trip for our honeymoon. I think after the wedding and honeymoon we ended up with like $2000 of debt on our credit card.

So you can definitely do a low budget wedding that’s still beautiful if you try.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#134

Post by decimalstus »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #129

Anybody know anything about this "Moissanite" thing? I find it interesting that in the 100+ comments here, there's no mention of the item the linked website so heavily promotes, yet I personally never heard of until now. One of the reasons I love HN is that usually relevant knowledge and experience will come out of woodworks and share their wisdom - so, anybody ever heard of "Moissanite"? :)

Moissanite is another name for Silicon Carbide - it's often used as a diamond 'lookalike' in jewelry, as it's much cheaper to produce.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#135

Post by gh02t »

stevehawk wrote: post #124
mjhagen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I'm about to defend a marketing slogan. "Most important" doesn't imply "best", in my opinion, I think it implies that this day has the most impact on your life, so make it a good one. Maybe future days will be better because of what happened on this day.

I will say that at 37 years of age i believe my wedding was the most important party i have thrown in my life. With people giving up an entire weekend to fly in to a central location for my wife and I it seemed only fair to make sure everyone had a great time. It's pretty easy for a wedding and reception to be boring for your guests.

Heh, that's the conundrum about weddings. It's supposed to be about you and your spouse, but the people getting married end up spending all their time stressing out over keeping the guests entertained.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#136

Post by Simon_says »

isostatic wrote: post #4

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.val…

He helped me. We spent under $1,000 on the wedding, of which $0 was spent on rocks.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#137

Post by charlesdm »

stinos wrote: post #44
charlesdm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just another guy pointing out WHY they're a ripoff. Most luxury goods are "ripoffs" (from a financial point of view). Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them and the experience, and because the item (in comparison to a non luxury item) is still much better. Nothing wrong with that in my view. Personally I don't share they view they're a ripoff, but to each their own. Have you ever…

Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them For me that is the huge rip-off next to the financial part: for a lot of these luxury items the extra money doesn't get you proportionally more or better functionality nor quality (2 things which are imo actually worth money since they give you something practical and useful back). It's often more about looks and how it feels. But do the peop…

Why would it be a rip off? You act as if 'overcharging' for something is always a rip off. If I'm walking in a desert without water.. I'll likely be billing to pay (a lot) more than if I had a bottle with me.

Luxury goods often have more price elasticity compared to other items, but they still deliver value to the people buying them. Not that you need an entire Louis Vuitton collection, but splurging can be fun. It's really not your call to make whether spending on luxury items is worth pursuing -- depends on how high your income and wealth is.

Also: perception is everything in the world. Someone who is well dressed is generally taken more seriously than the same person in a hoodie and wearing sweatpants.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#138

Post by tvanantwerp »

isostatic wrote: post #4

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.val…

I'm immensely grateful that my wife is from Hong Kong. Wedding gifts there take the form of cash in a red envelope, and it's normal to get married at a profit. When I explained to her that American weddings are usually held at a considerable loss, her reaction was to set the wedding budget to as close to zero as possible. I think the Hong Kong idea makes much more sense--a newly married couple needs a financial boost, not a debt burden.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#139

Post by wlll »

technofiend wrote: post #71
retSava wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's upsetting. As soon as merchandise X is prefixed with "wedding", the cost is doubled. Wedding cake? Boom. Wedding napkins? Check. Etc. It's astonishing how easy it is to fall into the trap of "it's just a one-time event", "it's the most important day of my life", etc.

You're not kidding! My wife was a wedding coordinator for nearly a decade and I used to joke with her "What next, wedding water?" Then someone got the bright idea to buy bottled water wholesale, label it with the wedding details and sell the result at a huge markup.

Startup idea: Wedding air.

Get an air compressor and bottle the air at the wedding. Sell bottles of the stuff so people can catch a whiff of the big day later.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#140

Post by [deleted] »

charlesdm wrote: post #6
isostatic wrote: post #4

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.val…

Not everything is about money though. Want to have an extravagant wedding? Fine. Want something basic? Also fine. Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty. That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.

[deleted]
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