On Sweetest Day last October, Philip Cohen gave Amy Eberman a concrete expression of his love and devotion.
In the couple’s Westmont home, Cohen got down on one knee, presented Eberman with an engagement ring and asked if she would be his bride. Eberman happily said yes.
“I have something for you,” Eberman then told a bewildered Cohen. She went rummaging through their closet and produced a box. She returned to Cohen and went down on one knee.
“I’d like to know,” she asked, “will you marry me back?” And with that, she presented Cohen a gold band with a diamond chip embedded inside it.
“I was just in shock,” Cohen says now. “It’s not something that usually happens. I’m thinking, `Do guys get engagement rings?’ “
They can now.
The time-honored ritual always has been for the bride-to-be to receive the token of her intended’s love–if something requiring such a big chunk of bank balance can indeed be termed a token.
But a man getting an engagement ring? It sounds bizarre but it is a practice not unknown in the United States, according to one jeweler who sells such items.
“They’ve been sold in the U.S. for eight years at least, and have been popular in Europe for 20 years,” says Sid Fey, president of Matthew Erickson Jewelers, where Eberman bought Cohen’s ring.
“I’ve always been one to do things before other people, not because somebody else was doing it. I did it because I liked it,” explains Eberman, 25, who took care that the band didn’t look “hokey or feminine or anything like that.”
She says Cohen, 26, isn’t one to wear flashy jewelry, but since she gave him the ring he hasn’t taken it off.
“This is a symbol of our love and commitment to each other, that we’re going to be married next year,” Eberman says. Besides, she adds, “He looks good with it.”
Cele Lalli, editor-in-chief of Modern Bride magazine, affirms the custom’s European origins. She says she recently learned of a Dutch bachelor who gave his American girlfriend a ring, “and he was so disappointed because she didn’t give him one.” But his fiance shouldn’t be held to task, says Lalli, simply because she had never heard of such a practice.
Neither had Krystyne Blaikie and Mark Tomiuk, who recently went shopping for an engagement ring–for her–at Oakbrook Center.
“I’ve never really thought about it before, to tell you the truth,” says Tomiuk, 25, of Wheaton. Blaikie, 24, adds: “Most guys I know don’t really wear jewelry, so it wouldn’t be something they’d think of doing.”
Blaikie says she wouldn’t give Tomiuk an engagement ring simply because “it’s too expensive.” Also, “I don’t think he’d wear one.”
“Probably not,” seconds Tomiuk. “I’m more a traditionalist, myself. But that’s just me.”
Fey says men’s engagement rings sell for anywhere from $400 to $2,000 (Cohen’s ring cost $550, Eberman says). They come in a variety of designs.
“They’re pretty subdued, sophisticated, tailored rings that a guy would normally like to have as a ring anyway,” he says. It can be worn with a wedding band, or the rings can be made up to look like one ring, Fey adds.
Lalli says a man’s engagement ring could be worn on the right hand, leaving the left hand free for a wedding ring. She also says that some women, instead of buying a separate ring, opt for giving the wedding ring as an engagement ring, and later having that ring blessed for the wedding.
“It’s not common, but there is certainly no reason not to do it, if you are of a mind,” she says.
Cohen says his ring has a jacket that can be slipped over the band, creating a thicker ring, but not hiding the diamond. He’ll get the jacket on the couple’s wedding day, which is scheduled for this time next year.
“Why should it only be a woman who gets an engagement ring?” asks Lalli. “Any guy who is lucky enough to have a woman who wants to buy him one should sweep her away.”
Cohen feels very special: “How many guys can say, `My wife got me a ring?’ When I handed her something, she handed me something back. It’s really an original way to do it.”
While some women are generous enough, there still isn’t a huge demand for the rings. Other jewelers, while admitting that people have asked about engagement rings for guys, say they are specialty items that they don’t sell as a matter of course.
Rena Aguirre of the Jewelry Exchange in Elmhurst says men’s engagement rings haven’t begun showing up in jewelry magazines.
“Anything’s available to be made, because we’re a manufacturing company,” she says. “We can make it to their specifications. If they want something special, that’s all we can do.”
Sam Rosenwasser of New York Jewelers in Chicago calls it “a far-fetched idea,” as well as “a way of expanding sales.”
Maybe rings to signify that a man is engaged may be uncommon, but rings designed to display commitment are not, notes Cheryl Kremkow, editor of Modern Jeweler, a magazine for retail jewelers.
“There is also a trend in the market for non-traditional commitment rings,” Kremkow says, “which might be for partners or people who are living together who decide that they don’t want to get married but they do want to have a ring as a symbol of their commitment to each other.”
