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The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

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Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#491

Post by iteratethis »

From my Dutch perspective, American weddings as well as the prestigious ring is astonishing to see. It's like an industry.

When my brother married, they went to the city council and signed a document. Later that night they threw a party in their own garden.

Probably didn't even spend 1K in costs, and everybody had a fantastic time and is still talking about it 20 years later. It really was a special day and they're a happy couple.

Just saying, you don't need all this garbage. It's about the people, not the stuff.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#492

Post by skywhopper »

iteratethis wrote: post #491

From my Dutch perspective, American weddings as well as the prestigious ring is astonishing to see. It's like an industry. When my brother married, they went to the city council and signed a document. Later that night they threw a party in their own garden. Probably didn't even spend 1K in costs, and everybody had a fantastic time and is still talking about it 20 years later. It really was a special day and they're a…

It is an industry in the US, for sure, but also, plenty of people in the US do minimal weddings like you describe. I'd be surprised, though, if lots of Dutch people didn't have big expensive weddings as well.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#493

Post by HelloMcFly »

lelanthran wrote: post #290
bcrosby95 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your wedding and funeral are the only two times everyone you care about will be in one room. And you only get to experience one of those. It's one of the few smart things to spend money on.

> Your wedding and funeral are the only two times everyone you care about will be in one room. And you only get to experience one of those. And yet, during both those times you will have no meaningful engagement with all those people you care about. If you want your wedding to be a meaningful event, you need to keep it small; the larger a party[1] is, the less engagement the host will get with the average attendee. […

> And yet, during both those times you will have no meaningful engagement with all those people you care about.

This was not my experience at all, for what it's worth.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#494

Post by skywhopper »

serf wrote: post #298
blindhippo wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, that's quite the binary distinction... Surely there is room between those subjective descriptions of people for "hey, I like this thing even though it's irrational, ok?" Let people live their lives and you do you. People aren't a "provider mannequin" just because they like to make their partner happy.

acknowledgement of irrationality, especially one that isn't accompanied with a wish to better themselves away from that irrationality, would be a major red flag for me personally entering into a long-term relationship. there is also a great distinction between "Yeah I know another helping of chocolate syrup on my ice cream is a bad decision, but it'll make me feel good today.", and "You need to make a 10kUSD+ purchas…

If you really believe that humans can or do operate "rationally" about any significant part of their lives, you should probably step back and re-examine your own behavior and that of those around you. Your definition of "rational" and the assumption that it could be universal is itself irrational. The fact that you spent any time typing a comment on this site is wildly irrational.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#495

Post by HelloMcFly »

stef25 wrote: post #332
xivzgrev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, buying diamonds, can complain all day about what a rip off it is (it is). But if you apprise your fiancé of the alternatives / opp costs (moissanite, man made, second hand, etc) and she still wants a new diamond, just get her a new diamond. It will make her happy for years. My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new…

> My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new one for a long time (she has a tendency to want to rent / sample / change things up). So to her credit she did her homework and spent a few months picking the best one. Sounds like me talking about my toddler and his Legos

Why does the topic of individual couple negotiating decisions some people don't agree with make people so uncharitable and derisive? The person you replied talked about something critical to functional relationships which is the open communication about wants, boundaries, implications. Both individuals likely had unspoken thoughts or motivations. This is a relationship success story where people identify and share what is important to them. There's undoubtedly areas of the relationship where the roles are reversed, and I am sure you have your own "legos" too.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#496

Post by klyrs »

svnt wrote: post #433
klyrs wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The happiest relationships result from both partners putting the other first. This forum is predominantly men. As a woman, I see variations on that "keep the hubby happy" phrase all over womens' spaces. So yeah. Some equality here is a little refreshing.

I am getting tired of this default perspective that “it’s about time men got around to this.” Anecdotally I’ve never read or heard the male term IRL so I decided to check the phrases on Google trends. Direct comparison of both full phrases shows that “keep the hubby happy” essentially doesn’t exist: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=k...

Funny that you cherrypick a single phrase that I actually made up, because I was generalizing, and use its unpopularity to insinuate that sexism never existed.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=h...

Above I'm comparing "happy husband" to "happy wife" because it includes searches for the phrase "happy wife happy life" and I don't know of a similar rhyming phrase involving husband and I want the comparison to be apples-to-apples.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#497

Post by Spooky23 »

xp84 wrote: post #226
Spooky23 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t buy silver or gold either. The genocide of entire peoples was committed to extract them from Latin American mines.

And... not buying a gold chain today will reanimate how many fallen Aztec warriors? (I'd never question your own choice to not buy it on those grounds, but proselytizing it seems to imply there are some stakes here that make it worth encouraging "everybody" to take up the same cause, and I just don't see how it matters.)

I’m being sarcastic! Unfortunately human suffering is all too common, so virtue signaling about everything has limited import.

In areas where value is more tradition than intrinsic (ie rhino horns, whalebone) it’s probably effective, but at a certain point it’s navel gazing.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#498

Post by travisporter »

brink wrote: post #3

I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.

I'm totally onboard - this is nonsense! What's annoying though is because moissanite is cheaper, you can't get a premade platinum ring with a moissanite stone.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#499

Post by ftyers »

xivzgrev wrote: post #46
brink wrote: post #3

I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.

Guys, buying diamonds, can complain all day about what a rip off it is (it is). But if you apprise your fiancé of the alternatives / opp costs (moissanite, man made, second hand, etc) and she still wants a new diamond, just get her a new diamond. It will make her happy for years. My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new…

That's what I thought... The price amortises over the length of the marriage, so it actually works out fairly reasonably.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#500

Post by vGPU »

brink wrote: post #3

I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.

I bought my wife an absolutely beautiful moissanite handmade ring on Etsy for a fraction of the price a real diamond would cost, and she’s been very happy with it. Not only does it look great, she has a tendency to leave rings lying around the house and forget where they are, so it’s not a panic-inducing event if she should happen to lose it.
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