<p>Within my own family, weddings have ranged from a casual civil ceremony with a few dozen relatives and friends of the bride/groom at a rented hall to an ostentatious affair with a guest list numbering a few hundred at a five-star resort hotel in Hawaii. </p>
<p>With friends, weddings tended to fall somewhere in between those two extremes…such as the one I attended in Seattle this past summer. Even with the bride’s family catering the food/desserts…weddings are an expensive affair and require much planning and help from relatives and close friends such as myself and other mutual friends. Fun, but stressful for the couple to be married and their families. </p>
<p>When I was 11, there were a few times I’ve jokingly suggested to parents/relatives that everything would be simplified and much expense spared if the wedding/reception of older cousins was held in a real off-beat place…such as the local junkyard. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many folks who appreciate fine adolescent humor of the smart-alecky sort.</p>
<p>And because world supply has been tightly controlled for 100 years. Diamonds are abundant around the world and cheap to produce, and wouldn’t be particularly valuable without the cartel. Women used to think that a diamond was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. These ad campaigns are to entice those women to become repeat customers.</p>
<p>greenwitch, married women can also wear the right-hand ring. So that manufactured trend is aimed at every woman.</p>
<p>Diamond marketing is generally brilliant, pun intended. The supply is controlled; advertising is well-funded; non-advertising is done well. Besides the tenth-year diamond, and the diamond anniversary (moved from 75 years to 25 years somehow), we have the tennis bracelet (worn by Chris Evert in the 80s) and all those diamonds that are loaned to the Oscar actresses. Lots of information about the diamond market here: [Have</a> You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/]Have”>Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>I will note that precious stones have always been associated with royalty. I can’t be alone in having made a special trip to see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. </p>
<p>Personally, I love my rocks. I have rocks of various kinds as paperweights (including a tiny chunk of amethyst pipe and several geodes). I also have rocks I wear as jewelry. If it gives me pleasure, I don’t see why that’s a problem. However, I don’t think of my rocks as an investment.</p>
<p>I’m not a jewelry person, but I work on the west side of Manhattan and sometimes I like to walk across 47th Street, which is the diamond district, and look at the incredible window displays. Some of the jewelry is breathtaking and so sparkly!</p>
<p>I’m not a big jewelry person, but one beautiful diamond sticks in my mind. We did a tour of a diamond factory in Amsterdam and at the end we were in a locked room with cameras and they unwrapped some diamonds to show us. We saw several of various sizes, cuts, clarities (they explained it all and showed us the difference - but I’ve slept since then).The one I remember was not huge (no idea what caret count, but it was not a huge vulgar looking thing - I really don’t care for big 2 caret diamonds), but it was just gorgeous. It was a blue diamond (as far as I recall, it just looked blue compared to the other diamonds, not blue blue), a very pure diamond and beautifully cut. I don’t think I have ever drooled over a precious gem before, but man it was so pretty and sparkly - never seen a diamond sparkle like that one. It was $17,000 just for the stone.</p>
<p>hyper- I read that story yesterday. It hit especially close to home since my sister became a widow at the age of 18. She lost her husband in Iraq- he shipped out about a week after the wedding. They never even got a honeymoon. They had been best friends since diapers and she is still adamant that he was the love of her life. No one who knew them doubted this. It’s been over 7 years now and she still has never really loved anyone else. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know how Bethany is doing it. </p>
<p>It’s beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time and I just can’t imagine…</p>