- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
What exactly is the purpose of a promise ring? A promise to get engaged? Why do a promise ring and not just an engagement ring?
I don't either, unless you're in high school, but I understand wanting a memorable token. A necklace would suit, too. Everybody I knew who got one in high school ended up breaking their promise basically, so I'm not sure how much salt they always hold. I actually wore a ring that DH gave me, but it definitely wasn't a promise ring, it was just a ring. But somebody I know from college (mid-20's) just posted her promise ring and it's a pave diamond band with a big white topaz. THAT i don't get. Looks JUST like an e-ring!!! I guess they serve a purpose and are cute for some couples, tho
A promise ring seems kind of HS to me--like you're too young to get engaged and both parties know it, but you want to do something special so that's it.
But if you're both adults, I'm not sure I understand why you wouldn't just get engaged? I suppose if you are planning to never get married, but even then...maybe call it something else.
When I was in middle/high school, promise rings were to symbolize your promise to wait to have sex for marriage... I always thought this was dumb simply because it's something that is a very personal decision why flash it around to the world your decisions about sex? (at 12 in some cases - which is way to early to think about sex in my opinion anyway)
I believe to some a promise ring symbolizes a promise to get engaged (which makes no sense to me, why the hell would you promise that in high school??).
My 29 year old friend recently received a promise ring from her 34 year old boyfriend.... they have been dating 2 years.
I got my promise ring right after we graduated high school (like a month). We didn't want a super long engagement but I didn't want to get engaged as a freshman in college and didn't want to get married while I was still going to classes for undergrad. I will admit though that after a while as we got older it did seem strange to have my promise ring on to promise to get married but not just get engaged.
Also, we'd been together like 7 months when he gave it to me and like I said we were just out of high school. I did know a girl that got one as a Junior in college and it struck me as odder than me still having one.
My fiance gave me a promise ring our first Christmas together. We exchanged rings to signify our commitment and intent to get engaged. Thirteen months later he proposed. He still wears his ring. It's not juvenile or "high school" since we were both in college. I plan on having the diamond in that ring placed in a pendant setting to wear as a necklace. It was our first major commitment to one another.
I knew a couple where he gave her a promise ring their freshman year of college - age 18. It aws really cute and he upgraded and officially proposed years later and are now married. I think its just a higher level of commitment from "boyfriend".
Every guy that gave me a promise ring was eventually an ex-boyfriend. There was only one that gave me a REAL promise ring and thus is still around. ;)
I exchanged them with my ex. We did it when we were 19 (had been together 2 years) because we knew we wanted to get married but we both wanted to wait until we were both done with school (which was going to be 5 more years for me bc of law school). It felt silly to wear an e-ring for that long and he didn't have the money for one anyways.
It seems very high school to me. And we didn't do one, even though we were the epitome of high school sweethearts. Hell, we were engaged without a ring for a month or two.
I have a promise ring. I'm in my mid 20's (not young) and we got it around 2 years of dating. It is super special to me because we weren't ready to get married, but he wanted me to know that we'd be getting engaged soon (yeah it's been a year and a half since then though...). I love it, it's special to me. My mom had a promise ring as well and I'd told him that I'd like one. It was just a step in our relationship that I wanted. I don't think it's childish, it's just another piece of jewelry (except I wear it daily) that reminds me of him.
It's an heirloom ring and I wear it on my middle finger of my left hand (it was too big to fit on my ring finger).
I have a promise ring! It's a cute little yellow gold band with a 0.03ct diamond in it lol! I love it so much and I wear it everyday on my right ring finger. My boyfriend gave it to me on our one year anniversary (we've now been together two and a half years) because at the time we were not yet considering marriage, but he wanted a symbol that our relationship was more serious. We were 21 at the time. I don't think it was childish at all. We were both done with school and had full time jobs when this happened!
I actually really love the sentiment! I also think it will be awesome when we get engaged and I'll add my engagement ring on my left ring finger and then when we get married I'll add the wedding band and it's like... little symbols of the stepping stones of our relationship :)
My 29 year old friend recently received a promise ring from her 34 year old boyfriend.... they have been dating 2 years.
I would be insulted if I were your friend. I hope she dumped his ass. That's like saying "here, I love you but I don't want to marry you." If she suspected he didn't want to marry her before, she sure as hell knows now.
I get the concept of a promise ring in situations described by some of the Bees in this thread, if you do intend to marry but not for 4 or 5 years or so. I think a promise ring in that kind of situation makes more sense than an actual engagement ring, as I think 5+ year engagements make even less sense than promise rings!
Whew, my brain hurts now.
Haha, well, I was personally engaged for 4 years and that seems like years and years compared to the average engagement. Mind you, we did not actually start actively planning our wedding until 10 months out. We were in school at the time we got engaged so we waited for our careers to take off, and bought and renovated a house - the promise was there, so we didn't mind waiting to officially seal the deal.
But I digress big time.....
My friend definitely didn't dump him, in fact, she thought it was quite cute. I think in her mind, it's an engagement ring..... but that's a different story for a different day! LOL!
I had one in highschool and loved it. It was a gorgeous, sweet little half eternity ring with a "point shape" in it. I wore it every day and it made me think of my BF and smile, but it wasn't really a "pre-engagement" ring as far as I was concerned.
But yeah, as an adult, I would probably laugh a little on the inside if I heard of someone receiving one.
I'm dying to know and I have a really slow work day today. Tell me, tell me!
I received one, we picked it out together...it was more to symbolize his committment to me, and he wanted to be engaged, however, at the time there was outside issues going on w/ his ex wife that prevented him from being able to buy an engagement ring. The band will now be my wedding ring
For christmas last year my fiance had told me i was going to get a promise ring. We are 25 and 26, so not high school. We are in a long distance relationship until i can finish university. We love each other and want to get married, but i didnt want to be engaged while we were long distance, as i didnt want to run around doing wedding type things like cake testing and choosing the hall alone. He picked out a georgeous ring, described it to me, and i told him not to go overboard if its just a promise ring because it will be hard to one up when it comes time to get engaged. So he took that ring back and with the help of my friends, ended up picking another ring. When he proposed and i opened my eyes to see him down on one knee with a beautiful ring in a box, i looked up at him to see what it meant. If it was a promise ring or an engagement ring. He then asked me to marry him, and he promised me that if i do have any wedding things such as a cake testing, he will come down on the weekends so he can be there for them. We ended up agreeing to a long engagement, that way i can finish my school, we can go from long distance to living together, and then start planning our wedding together.
Yeah, I don’t get them either. SO exchanged promise rings with his high school girlfriend and he always talks about how silly it was because he knew from about six months into a 3-year relationship that they were never getting married.
SO’s brother just gave his girlfriend a promise ring. He’s 25. She’s 22. She definitely thinks it’s a mini-engagement ring and posted pictures on facebook and explained that the .18 carat diamond can be swapped for a .50 carat later, when the time comes and he’ll just do that since it’s her perfect e-ring style, etc... He gave her the ring after they broke up for a week (they’ve been together for about 3 years). Personally, I feel like all of those things are inappropriate. 3 years together and you’re breaking up for a week and then giving rings? 25 years old (and he lives with his parents so he has plenty of $) and you’re giving a promise ring instead of an e-ring? LAME. I’m pretty sure she pressures him into commitment (marriage, engagement, etc.) but at the same time I know the little week-long break was his doing, not hers. It’s a very, very weird relationship.
I guess to each their own. I personally think they're a little juvenile, and have to admit I would have been embarrassed to receive one outside of high school.
I don't think promise rings are a purely a high school thing filled with an empty promise. When my boyfriend gave me my promise ring (when we were both 21, after a year of dating and were both done school and had jobs) Neither of us were ready to get engaged at that point. We loved each other, but we were not ready to be married yet. The ring was a promise to each other that our relationship was serious and that we were both very committed to it, even though we were not yet ready for a marriage commitment. It put our relationship on a new level. Now 2.5yrs later and we're picking out an engagement ring, I really love that we took steps instead of either rushing right into getting engaged or going right from just dating to preparing to spend our whole lives together. Having that mental step in between made us stronger as a couple. I actually think it was the opposite of immature.
@deathbydesign: Ditto! I got my PM around 1yr of dating. We were 18&20. Not ready to be engaged/married! Then 2 yrs later got the e-ring!
My SO and I were toying with the idea of a promise ring (after dating for 1.5-2 yrs), but that turned into shopping for an engagement ring instead.
When they are used in a different context such as:
My friend gave her niece a promise ring with the promise that she will wait to have sex. The point of this ring is to remind her of the promise she made. I think this is a great idea and am tempted to do this for my niece when she's a little older. I am one of the only girls in my family who hasn't gotten pregnant as a teen (the other girl has infertility problems 
). I think waiting until your atleast out of high school is great.
So I guess I get the promise ring and depending on how it is used think it can be sweet and/or serve a purpose.
@deathbydesign: I think it's obviously a personal thing but also an age issue. When I was 20 if I'd been in a serious relationship I don't think I would have minded a promise ring. For me personally, I'm almost 28, have been with SO for 4 years and even when we started dating, I would have felt too old for a promise ring. We did other 'mature' things though as our relationship progressed. We moved in together. We got a second dog together. We took vacations to Europe. We got a joint credit card. Since we were both well into adulthood when we started dating I would have personally been upset with a promise ring. We had a conversation 2 years in when we both agreed that we were in it for life and marriage and kids would be happening. That was all the promise I really needed.
@artichokey: I agree that is it a personal thing and probably depends on age, but I don't think it should be automatically equated with immaturity.
I think promise rings can mean different things in different cultures. I always thought of it as a more modern twist on "going steady". In that you're committed to each other - but I don't actually know anyone who has one who didn't receive it right before starting a LDR. So it was a promise to come back to them and a promise not to forget them.
DH wanted to get me a promise ring so he could come round to the idea of getting engaged. I said I'd rather we save the money for something we wanted in the future and I'm glad I did - I just think it would have been too weird for me, personally.
My fiance gave me a promise ring before we were engaged. We hadn't been together long enough to actually get engaged, but we both knew we wanted a future together. He was about to be deployed overseas and gave it to me as a promise of our future together and a promise that he would come back to me. I was so glad that I had that during his tour as it always cheered me up. And now I just wear it on my right hand and my engagement ring on my left.
Lol I agree with @lezlers. I would have killed my man if he had given me a promise ring when what I really wanted was the engagement ring.
My now husband gave me a promise ring during my freshman year of college. We started dating right before we graduated high school (we went to different schools and had met at the beginning of our senior year). We initially were at different schools about 3 hours away, and I liked having the promise ring because it reminded me that we were in a relationship even though we were living hours away from each other.
I started graduate school a few years later at age 21 and decided that I wasn't going to wear the promise ring anymore. We had moved in together and it started to feel a little juvenile to me (granted, it was also a pink stone...). He proposed about 6 months later 
. Even though we're married and I have my engagement ring and wedding band, I keep the promise ring in my jewelry box. To me, it's symbolic of a specific period of time in our lives.
I don't really get them past HS, maybe college, either. It's great if it works for you. I've just never known anyone who received a promise ring post HS. Fraternity guys would pin their girlfriends, however, in college, which is sort of the same thing, I guess.
I'm sooo glad to see this post because I was thinking the same thing yesterday! I don't want to offend anyone who has received a promise ring so please just take this as my opinion and that's it.
It's my understanding that a promise ring is a "promise" that you will be engaged and then married down the road. To me it's completely pointless. Why do you need to promise to be engaged? If you aren't at a point in your life when you're ready to be engaged, then just wait. Your commitment to each other should be enough. Why do you need a ring to confirm that? Besides the fact that it means nothing and you could still easily break up (which is the same with an engagement ring, just generally, e rings are seen as bigger commitments), it's saying you are going to be together forever, and I think a lot of girls basically take it as a promise of forever, but isn't that what an engagement ring is supposed to be? You don't need a commitment ring in order to affirm that you are now in a relationship, or a love ring to confirm that he loves you. Why do you need a "promise ring" to show that he wants to marry you? I don't know. The whole thing just makes no sense to me. I agree with previous posters that it is a very high school thing, and let's be honest, except for a few very lucky people (and believe me i wish I was one so I could avoid a lot of heartache I've been through since), how many of us really end up marrying (and having a successful marriage) with our high school sweethearts?
Anyways, yeah, I don't get promise rings either and I honestly don't take them seriously. (Again, no offense because every situation is different)
@mc77: A promise ring doesn't "confirm" anything. A promise ring is simply a symbol of where you are in your relationship. You're right that the promise is what really counts, but that doesn't mean a ring still isn't a lovely symbol of that time in your life and the commitment you made that you are able to see with your eyes and feel on your hand. You could easily say the same about engagement rings. Why does anyone need an engagement ring? A couple just needs to promise to marry each other, the ring is useless. Rings (or other jewelry or keepsakes) act like a physical representation of your promises or significant moments in your life and that is very important to a lot of people. Also, who says the ring "means nothing" just because the promise can be broken? Engagements can fall through, marriages can end in divorce. None of these rings actually strengthen the relationship all by themselves, but would anyone say they don't mean anything? Again, it is the promise that counts and while the ring is a nice representation of that promise, just like an engagement or wedding ring, it's the relationship you have with one another and the other ways you are tying your lives together that are really important. I don't see why a ring representing a different part of a relationship is any more silly than an engagement ring.
I don't care if anyone takes the promise ring seriously or not. It's for no one but me and my SO.
Sometimes the level of emotional commitment is different than the financial comittment of plannign a wedding. I think you shouldn't get engaged unless you are ready to start planning a wedding soon or go to the courthouse or whatever. The promise ring is a symbol of the comitment, without the planning. I too got one in college, My husband and I have been together since high school, and in college a lot of my older friends were getting married. we had zero money and no parental financial support for a wedding, so for us it made more sense to have promise rings that we got together (claddah rings we got in ireland) to symbolize our commitment, but we waied until we knew we could pay for a wedding to have one.
I think lots of times in life people are ready for emotional commitments, while still not being prepared to get married, either because they are young, or I have known a woman wo got one from a man she was dating, because they were waiting for her son to go off to college, because he didnt like his mom dating again, and he also had kids. I think getting a promise ring because someone just isnt ready for the commitment of a wedding is different than - emotionally ready but not financially (or otherwise) ready.
I just thought of something (slow day at work, indeed), a promise ring outside of high school is kind of the equivelent of being "engaged to be engaged." That phrase drives me up the wall. "Engaged to be engaged" = dating. You're either engaged or you're not. While I apprecite the attempt to create another catagory of relationship for those that serious to a point where the label "dating" doesn't seem to cut it (for example if you're living together, have kids together, ect.) it just doesn't work. As much as it may sting, the proper label for the relationship is still "dating" or "living together." Not "engaged to be engaged." Although I do like the idea of men giving promise rings to their wimmins before deploying overseas. That one gets me all swoony. :)
@vistagirl: I completely agree with you and that is a point that I hadn't thought of but you're right.
@deathbydesign : I apologize if I offended you, wasn't my intention and of course you shouldn't care what I or anyone else thinks because it is very true that it only matters what it means to you and your SO. My personal experience of promise rings (with friends receiving them) is that they don't actually mean a whole lot and I think that is the way it is with a lot (maybe the majority?) of people who receive them because it is often a high school thing. You are right that you could break up after anything, I just think that committing to spend the money on a wedding and get into a marriage which would be financially and emotionally draining to get out of is a bit different. I think a promise ring is a great way to show that you are serious about each other if you are into that thing. But I just don't think it makes complete sense to promise to get engaged in every situation. In some situations, yes.
I think the whole promise ring thing depends on your experience with them and to be honest, age. Not to say that it is immature because a 40 year old woman can be more immature than a 20 year old woman however, I think a lot of us who are older and who have been "promised" that a guy wants to spend the rest of their life with us and have experienced that broken promise, may not agree with those of you who are younger and haven't been through multiple serious relationships that seriously had the possibility of ending in marriage.
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| Lyndzo | 29 |
| beargoose | 21 |
| his chippymunk | 20 |
| Ms. Salamander | 18 |
| LammChop | 17 |
| rebwana | 17 |
| fivemonthsnotice | 17 |
| kat2014 | 15 |
| mypinkshoes | 15 |
| s.renea9 | 15 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| peppybride | 9 |
| MerryWidow | 7 |
| JustLove25 | 7 |
| GelaMac | 6 |
| s.renea9 | 5 |
| MrsOliveBird | 4 |
| mrs.t_finally | 4 |
| RayKay | 3 |
| komatsu | 3 |
| kudrakupala | 3 |
