Engagement Ring

While wed­ding bands are presen­ted at the wed­ding ce­re­mony, en­gage­ment rings are giv­en dur­ing an­oth­er im­port­ant ritu­al pre­ced­ing the wed­ding - the en­gage­ment. En­gage­ment rings are con­sidered to be the sym­bol of firm and ser­i­ous in­ten­tions of a suit­or. The tra­di­tion to give en­gage­ment rings is far young­er than that of wear­ing wed­ding bands; it emerged only in the 15th cen­tury, when Max­imili­an, the Duke of Aus­tria, sent a beau­ti­ful dia­mond ring to the young Mary of Bur­gundy as a token of his in­tent to of­fer her his hand and heart. Since that very time and up un­til today, this tra­di­tion re­mains pop­u­lar. Most wo­men dream about get­ting their en­gage­ment rings (even the ones that say they don't).

Un­til the middle of the 20th cen­tury, a true en­gage­ment ring had a cent­ral gem­stone, while a wed­ding band was sup­posed to be smooth - as smooth as the forth­com­ing fam­ily life. In re­cent years, this tra­di­tion­al look has be­come less strict, and some­times today it could be dif­fi­cult to tell an en­gaged wo­man from a mar­ried one.

Un­til the wed­ding, an en­gage­ment ring is usu­ally worn on the same fin­ger that later will be dec­or­ated with a wed­ding band. Some­times, couples wear these rings on spe­cial oc­ca­sions sim­ul­tan­eously with their wed­ding bands, but often en­gage­ment rings are simply kept as a re­mind­er of the first happy days of be­ing to­geth­er.