Saturday, April 18, 2009

Ultimate Wedding: Engagement & Engagement Ring

Proposing
Which is the more up-to-the-minute and fashionable way for a modern couple to reach a definitive agreement that they will be married?

Scenario One:
This takes place in the household that the couple already share, at a time neither of them has scheduled. Either person can initiate the conversation, as long as this is done in an acrimonious tone. The subject is provoked by a piece of information from the outside—a wedding invitation from another couple, an inquiry from a parent, a photograph of a baby in a magazine, a newspaper feature declaring a trend in the way people live. If the idea of marriage is not rejected out of hand, the next session is a businesslike negotiation. Terms are debated: Whose money would be whose? How would future work, such as child rearing, be divided? What contingencies would there be in case the marriage failed? If that is concluded successfully, discussions of wedding plans begin with the mention of an engagement ring. Will there be one? How will it be chosen? How will it be financed—by the gentieman alone, or should the lady contribute equally? Can she contribute more in order to upgrade what he might be able to afford, on the grounds that it is she who will be wearing it?

Scenario Two:
The gentleman secretly plans a special occasion and lures the lady to conform with his plans without her guessing the purpose. If she does, she is obliged to preserve the illusion by pretending to be bewildered. The setting he has chosen has sentimental associations, or luxurious or romantic characteristics, or as many and much of these as his imagination and resources allow. He is on his most courdy and attentive behavior, but he draws things out for the maximum suspense. At the great moment, he brings out an engagement ring that he has chosen and bought by himself. Perhaps he hides it somewhere clever for her to find (food seems to be the hiding place of choice), or perhaps he just produces it dramatically as he pronounces the age-old formula, "Will you marry me?" She appears to be overcome with confusion and emotion. After a suitable period of blushing and protesting her amazement, she agrees to allow him to slip the ring on her finger. Then one or the other must bring up the next business at hand, which is when and how he will ask her parents' permission to marry her.

Which do you think is today's cutting edge form of marriage proposal?
Call her old-fashioned, but Miss Ultimate Wedding had thought it was Scenario One. Even her cloistered ears have heard that young people do not nowadays agree to marry after a mere kiss on the parental front porch and that they have perhaps not preserved their innocence about financial matters and other practical considerations.
Yet she seems to have been mistaken. Scenario Two is becoming more and more the prevailing tradition. True, those who practice it are not generally in their first youth or first stages of courtship. It has even been suggested to her that it is for that very reason that they want the trappings of romance and the ceremonies of the past.

Miss Ultimate Wedding is aware that the gentleman may have to remind himself not to conclude the meal by saying, "Don't think we're going to split this down the middle—you had dessert and I didn't." She knows that the following week, the lady who needed her parents' permission to be married may be indignant that they think they have anything to say about the wedding arrangements. But for the moment, Miss Ultimate Wedding would just like to bask in the charm of the revived ritual. She has not a word of advice to add—except perhaps that they both pay sufficient attention to avoid ending up in the Emergency Room because the lady has swallowed the ring.

Her Proposal
Q. During courtship, there is typically a period of "testing the waters" for marriage. In this day and age, I do not believe that a lady must necessarily wait for her suitor to propose, assuming that if he hasn't asked her, he is not ready to marry her. I think it would be romantic for a gentleman to receive an (albeit unconventional) proposal from the woman he loves.

What is the correct etiquette for proposing to a man? Does the lady still wear an engagement ring? If so, should it be bought in advance or after, by him, her, or both together? Should she offer her fiance a ring or some other token of her commitment? Finally, does this alter in any way the traditional divisions of responsibility and costs of the wedding?

A. Miss Ultimate Wedding wishes people would understand that there is a difference between one gender's claiming a privilege that was once associated with the other and completely switching genders. Proposing to the gentleman does not make her—if he accepts—the bridegroom. Nor would he wear the bridal veil at the wedding.
There is nothing wrong with a lady's proposing marriage to a gentleman; it is not even all that unconventional. That's what old-fashioned feminine probings to find out the seriousness of a suitor's intentions were all about.

As for the wording, a marriage proposal should concentrate on one person's passionate desire to be united to the other. Miss Ultimate Wedding might have considered that obvious but for all the people who believe that "It's about time" or "I'm not getting any younger" are just as effective. They aren't. Tell him that you can't wait to begin your lives together.

The part about the ring is best left out. Gentlemen do not wear engagement rings (Miss Ultimate Wedding is not listening to the cry of tradespeople who want to supply such items) and a lady's giving herself an engagement ring tends to suggest that the gentleman's role in the relationship will be a negligible one.
Having accepted a marriage proposal does not in any way prevent a gentleman from giving his fiancee an engagement ring if he feels so inclined. From the time he accepts, they become an engaged couple and proceed in their plans as they would otherwise have done.

Parental Permission
Q. My son is planning to become engaged to a wonderful girl who has had a strict upbringing and has only recently broken away from a matriarch-mother. His fiancee is aware of this and has been friendly and sociable.

My son asked if it would help matters if he would first mention the engagement to the mother (the girl's father has died) to let her feel she is part of their plans. Or is that never done with engagements—that being a private happy time for the two involved. Is it still proper and considerate for my son to ask the mother for "her daughter's hand" and "blessing for the marriage"? He wants to do the right thing in order to continue gaining the mother's approval.

A. Your son has charming instincts and Miss Ultimate Wedding has only small adjustments to suggest to him. Even in stricter times, a gentleman interested in a romantic match—as opposed to making a business deal with a lady's family and depending on them to extract her compliance^—always made sure of the lady before approaching her family.

In this case, your hint about mother-daughter friction makes it seem especially wise first to make sure of her feelings about his idea, as well as her feelings about him.
The proper order is therefore:
1. Ask young lady for her hand in marriage.
2. Ask young lady for permission to ask her mother for her hand in marriage.
3. Ask mother.

The Prenuptial Contract
"Daddy's being horrid," the bride-to-be would say in simpler times. "He wants to know all about the money—as if I cared about money! All I care about is you. His stupid solicitors are even asking about dowager rights. That's disgusting. Why, if anything happened to you—or if I thought you didn't love me any more—I wouldn't need any money, because I'd just kill myself."
Her fiance would take her hand in his, glancing around to make sure no one was looking. "My parents are just as bad," he would confide. "Money, property—my mother wanted to know what would happen to the family pearls if I predeceased you and you married again. You wouldn't marry again, would you? Of course not. Me neither. I'm beginning to think they can't ever have been in love themselves. No one who understood how I feel about you could even think of material things."

Thus the happy couple could snuggle up against each other in perfect understanding and love, while her family lawyers and his family lawyers hammered out an agreement that represented each of their interests should the unthinkable occur.

Miss Ultimate Wedding does not recount this tale to suggest that all does not always turn out as the affianced imagine, nor even to warn that they should prepare themselves in case it doesn't. She believes in true love. She is merely pointing out that concerns about the eventual disposition of money and property when a marriage begins is not a new phenomenon. The Victorians knew how to handle it a lot better than modern couples who are looking out for their own interests.

The modern approach is that the bridegroom (or whichever of the couple is richer) shoves a document into the bride's face the day, or perhaps only hours, before the wedding, and says, "Here, you have to sign this." At any reluctance, he threatens to call off the marriage. By this time, she would be only too glad to be rid of him, but she feels a sense of responsibility to the caterer. So she signs.
It is true that in the antique version, it was entirely possible that the gentleman would eventually run off with the governess and that the lady not only did not kill herself, but, as he was able to show, had long since been consoling herself with the curate.

However, in the modern version, disillusion and bitterness have set in before the wedding has taken place. The thought of coercion may appear during the ceremony itself, whereas in the olden days, the financial arrangement had been kept entirely separate from the courtship. The agreement by which she had to give back the pearls and he was unable to touch her family property had been cheerfully made between two parties, either parents or their representatives, whose business sense was unclouded by emotions.

Miss Ultimate Wedding suggests that anyone interested in a prenuptial agreement about finances return to the ancestral wisdom. Perhaps there are no parents around willing to involve themselves in the transaction, but one may still blame others for being unromantic, even if one has hired them for the purpose.
Miss Ultimate Wedding recommends a version of the following dialogue:
"Oh, darling, I wish we were married already. There's so much to do, and I just want to be alone with you."
"Ummmmm. Me, too."
"Did you call about the cake?"
"I thought you were going to do that."
"That's right—I will. I'm sorry. Oh, and then there's another thing. My lawyer has done some property agreement—what happens if I die, or whatever."
"Don't even think such a thing. I couldn't live without you. What's in it? Where is it?"
"Darling, I don't even know. I find the whole thing degrading. I'm just going to have my lawyer send it over to your lawyer. Now come here."

The Engagement Announcement and Presents
Q. I received a formal, engraved engagement announcement; the couple does not plan to be married any time soon. Is a gift required, or even appropriate?

A. Traditionally, there is no such thing as a private, formal engagement announcement, as opposed to general announcements in newspapers. People are supposed to let their friends know the happy news by telephone, letter, or other informal means.
Miss Ultimate Wedding does not want to suggest that your friends had any ulterior motive for inventing a new form. Perhaps they fell under the influence of a stationer who had an ulterior motive. Perhaps they have more friends than they can possibly keep in touch with using the normal methods, although that does seem to make nonsense out of the definition of friendship. In any case, the response is the same as if they had written that friendly note. Write back, congratulating them and wishing them happiness.

No presents are necessary at this time. People who care enough about the principals to attend a wedding are supposed to express this symbolically by means of a wedding present, but it takes a great deal more spontaneous affection to want to give an engagement present. The only traditional (but also not obligatory) one is the ring that the prospective bridegroom gives the prospective bride.

The Engagement Ring

THE PRESENTATION
Q. I have been engaged for nearly nine months, but my fiance and I have recently bought my engagement ring together. My mother is upset with us, because she says that the ring is supposed to be given to me at the engagement party and that I am not supposed to see it until then. Is there any truth to this saying?

A. No, Miss Ultimate Wedding is afraid not. She doesn't want to encourage you to engage in etiquette battles with your mother—the two of you have a wedding yet to get through—but she knows of no such custom. Presentation of an engagement ring is necessarily a private event. A party is to announce that the engagement already exists^—-not to allow people to witness its being made.

THE RING SIZE

Q. I am a divorced male whose fiancee is also divorced and marrying for the second time. What is the currently accepted protocol for engagement rings in second marriages? Also, must my fiancee's ring necessarily be larger than the one given by her ex-husband to his current fiancee?

A. The correct formula is to multiply the size of the lady's first engagement ring by the size of the one you gave your first wife and add to it the size of the ring her former husband gave his fiancee. With any luck, you will soon reach a stalemate, with the gentlemen no longer able to afford to raise the stakes and the ladies no longer able to lift their hands, and Miss Ultimate Wedding will be able to turn her attention to sensible questions.

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