<prompt> Human: Following up on a previously gilded post about how people pay for weddings - how do people afford an engagement ring? Everything just seems so expensive when you start adding up costs. This tradition, just feels so odd now especially when its really just the pre-game to the actual rings which also are expensive....Let me pull some stats from my previous post:Theoretically, my GF and I will have a combined annual income of lets say 70-80k. We are paying around 800 a piece in student loans per month, plus other billsrent. No savings really - right now - and its unlikely our families will be able to contribute thousands of dollars.  <response>: My engagement ring is lab grown white sapphire. Everyone thinks its a diamond. I believe it was only a couple hundred dollars.Its a more cost effective option to do anything non-diamond. 