Couples Are Ring Shopping with This New Criteria

Nineteen percent said that a stone between 2 and 3 carats was their preferred size, while 4 percent indicated that a stone above 3 carats was their ideal weight.

When it came to the popularity of ring stones, diamonds were the stone of choice for 73 percent of people polled.

Nine percent preferred colored gemstones, followed closely by “raw diamonds,” which were preferred by 8 percent of the group.

Four percent wanted a pearl ring and another 4 percent marked “other,” a category that encompasses stones like moissanite.

Round brilliant diamonds have long been the most popular cut of stone in engagement rings and this held true in WeddingWire’s study, in which 22 percent of people ranked it as their cut of choice.

Princess cuts were a close second at 21 percent, with a big gap between it and the third most popular cut, ovals, which received 8 percent of the votes.

That was followed by emerald cuts at 7 percent and heart cuts at 6 percent. Cushion cuts, rose cuts, marquise cuts and pear cuts each received 4 percent of votes.

When it came to the process of ring shopping, WeddingWire’s survey indicated that 57 percent of people look at rings 1 to 6 months prior to proposing while 24 percent said they didn’t do research at all, though that was overwhelmingly because they were proposing with a family ring.

Both proposers and those set to receive the ring looked at an average of six rings in-store and 49 percent of women from heterosexual couples had tried on engagement rings prior to getting engaged.

Thirty-five percent of those who wanted a ring showed pictures of rings to the proposer from visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, and 66 percent of people had shared their engagement “just- said-yes” moments on social media.

Interestingly, while 47 percent of the proposers said that they purchased a customized ring, the person who received the ring had no idea if their ring was customized or not.

Trumpower also indicated that with so much information about weddings, engagements and rings available online and on social media, couples were having difficulty cutting through the noise, with most of them saying they had a hard time making decisions and felt stressed due to the amount of information available.

This underpinned a need for ultimately working with jewelers in-store when it came to engagement ring shopping, as human connection helped cancel out the digital-decision fatigue.