What’s wrong with upgrading your engagement ring?
After Meghan tweaked her ring, explains why she did too, and why her wedding band is next
The eagle-eyed among us noticed a little extra twinkle amid the pomp and ceremony of Trooping the Colour this month: almost two years after the Duke of Sussex proposed, the Duchess has had her engagement ring revamped.
The original, which was designed by Prince Harry and made by Cleave and Company, court jewellers to the Queen, was a gold band with an ethically sourced centre stone from Botswana, where the couple first holidayed and fell in love, flanked by two round diamonds, which came from a brooch belonging to Diana, Princess of Wales.
“The little diamonds on either side are from my mother’s jewellery collection, to make sure that she’s with us on this crazy journey together,” explained the Prince.
Now, however, the gold band has been replaced with a slimmer, diamond-studded one. Social media was outraged, of course, while Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, deemed it “a bit odd [that] Meghan would want to alter a ring that her husband had especially designed for her. A royal engagement ring is a piece of history, not a bit of jewellery to be updated when it looks old-fashioned.”
But Meghan is far from the only royal bride to have a ring makeover: Grace Kelly (another American former actress who married into European royalty) was proposed to with a relatively modest ruby and diamond Cartier ring, which her fiancé, Prince Rainier III of Monaco, later upgraded with a 12-carat diamond. A few years ago, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark added diamonds to her ruby and diamond engagement ring from Prince Frederik, and even the Princess of Wales subtly tweaked her famous engagement ring, adding extra claws around the tiny diamonds circling the sapphire.
You don’t have to be a princess pr to want an upgrade: u according to a survey su done by the diamond d house Vashi a few fe years back, as many as a 12 per cent of women would change the style of their engagement ring if they could.
I went one step further f and, after four years y of marriage, got a new one altogether. My husband Dan proposed in Hong Kong in 2007 without a ring, because I had always told him I’d like to help choose my own. We went shopping the next day and he bought me a beautiful sapphire, with a diamond on each side.
I loved it – I still love it – but after four years I was hankering after a traditional diamond. Dan didn’t bat an eyelid, and we headed to London’s Hatton Garden, where he bought me a Twenties art deco diamond solitaire ring, which I adore. I occasionally wear my sapphire ring on my right hand and it still holds huge sentimental value. I’ll probably give it to one of my daughters one day.
The idea that upgrading or tweaking an engagement ring is odd, or flashy, or ungrateful, misses the point. I got engaged when I was 28 and I’m 40 next month. My taste in clothes, cars and interiors has changed in that time, so it stands to reason my taste in jewellery has, too.
Victoria Beckham has accumulated a collection of 14 engagement rings throughout her 20-year marriage, which she rotates. Excessive, perhaps, but does it mean she doesn’t still cherish the ring David gave her all those years ago when they first fell in love? No, of course not.
Updating things so you love them more just makes sense. My mother died last year and I recently cleared out her house, tweaking a lot of her possessions that I grew up with. I sanded back her old dresser that had stood in her living room since the Eighties and now, whenever I look at it in my own living room, I think of her. I’m just about to upholster her favourite armchair, which I’ll keep by my fireplace and feel close to her whenever I sit in it. I’ve reframed some of her old pictures, and I recently found an emerald brooch among my mother’s jewellery that belonged to my great-aunt. I’m thinking of having it made into earrings. I would never wear the brooch, but if I tweak it to my tastes I’ll wear it all the time, rather than keeping it stashed away in a drawer.
To Meghan’s critics (of whom there are many), the ring is yet more proof that the new duchess is suffering from “American Wife Syndrome”. It suggests she’s grabby, ungrateful and flash, as per the recent Frogmore Cottage makeover, for which £2.4million of taxpayers’ money has been spent turning a quaint, grade II-listed cottage nestled in the Windsor countryside into a glossy mini mansion.
But when it comes to rings, I’m with her all the way: I may even update my wedding band for my 40th birthday, next month. Again, Dan is more than happy. Mainly because he won’t have to think about what to get me as a gift.
Maria Lally
‘A royal engagement ring is a piece of history, not jewellery to be updated’