In most traditional relationships, women expect their man to give them gifts of jewelry, and the men do so. Today, more women are paying special attention to giving jewelry to their men than ever before.
Giving jewelry to your spouse or romantic partner has always been a popular gift. Often holidays like Christmas, anniversaries and Valentine’s Day prompt men to run to the jewelry store for something shiny and expensive. Imagine how much more valued this gift would be if given without a major holiday attached to it. Why not give your partner jewelry for no particular reason, other than love?
Diamonds are always popular when it comes to choosing jewelry, other gemstones or simply silver and gold can be just as popular. You probably know that each month has a gemstone that represents it, and those gemstones each have a symbolic meaning. If you really want to blow your partner away, select your jewelry for it’s significance to a particular month (birthday or anniversary for example) or for another more personal meaning.
Here’s a brief look at the gemstone for each month and their meanings.
January – garnet, represents faith and stability and is available in many colors, except blue
February – amethyst, represents sincerity and happiness and is royal purple in color
March – aquamarine, represents hope and bravery and is a blue-green or sea-green color
April – diamond, representing joy and innocence
May – emerald, represents peace and tranquility and is always green
June – pearl, standing for wisdom and pureness
July – ruby, represents passion and nobility and is always a beautiful red
August – peridot, stands for patience and has a yellowish-green color
September – sapphire, represents honesty and hope and is available in a variety of shades of blue
October – opal or tourmaline, represents confidence and sweet love
November – topaz or citrine, stands for friendship and faithfulness and both are brown through orange or yellow
December – turquoise, represents understanding and success. In 2002, the AGTA added Tanzanite as another December birthstone
As with any gift from the heart, presentation can count nearly as much as the gift. How would you feel if your beloved just tossed you the diamond ring and said “Gotcha something?” Now, what if they went to some amount of effort to present it to you? There movies and personal stories everywhere about how people have presented a special piece of jewelry to their spouse. Believe it or not, food is one of the most popular methods! People tend to place rings in champagne or other clear beverages or bake it into their special person’s favorite pie or cake. What is often left out of these stories is the precautions you need to take. Make sure your loved one doesn’t actually eat your gift, or worse, choke on it. Next, check with your jeweler about any physical precautions. Champagne will actually dissolve pearls and if you baked a ruby it may crack!
Giving the gift of a lifetime is a significant investment, and you shouldn’t enter into it lightly. Do your research, make sure you know what you’re buying, and how to make a good decision. You can visit the website for the Jewelry Information Center at www.jic.org for free advice on a variety of jewelry related topics.
For many people, there’s only one way to propose and get engaged: with a diamond ring. It is considered to be a symbol of a man’s enduring love that he will spend a large amount on a large diamond that the woman can then show off to her friends and family – it shows that he can and will support her for the rest of her life.
This idea of giving diamond rings before marriage has been around for less than a century, however, as it was popularised entirely by Hollywood, allegedly because worldwide diamond monopoly De Beers paid off filmmakers to create a romantic image around diamonds, using the slogan ‘a diamond is forever’.
The reality is that diamonds are not intrinsically worth very much at all, with many people who try to sell their diamonds being shocked to discover that they can only get back a fraction of what they originally paid for them. Worse, many diamonds come from parts of the world where the locals have been oppressed and local officials bribed just so the company could set up a diamond mine, especially in Africa.
For these reasons – unjustified cost and ethical concerns – many people now prefer to use other gems in rings instead of diamonds. Fake diamonds with names like ‘diamonique’ and ‘diamonte’ are popular, as stones like rubies and emeralds.
However, for the real traditional feel, plenty of people still feel you can’t beat a diamond. When you’re looking for a diamond ring, it’s common to be worried mainly about how many carats the diamond is, but remember that its cut (that is, the way it has been cut out of the original mined material) can be even more important in giving the diamond a pleasant appearance.
Also, although this is entirely subjective, you might find it worth buying a ring where many small diamonds are used to pleasant effect, rather than one big diamond poking out of the top, and you should also consider getting a guarantee that the diamond is not a De Beers ‘conflict diamond’, so that no-one has suffered to get it to you.