In February, The Knot fielded its third annual Engagement & Jewelry Study, canvasing 14,000 brides and 1,750 grooms on The Knot Wedding Network to assess their thoughts on the bridal jewelry buying process, from how they conducted research to choosing gifts for their wedding party.
We’ve broken down the highlights into four distinct categories focused on the research, the retailer, the engagement ring, and after the engagement.
The Engagement Ring
- 85% of rings are purchased new; 11% are heirloom; 4% are vintage
- 61% of rings feature colorless diamond centers with side stones/accents; 23% feature a colorless diamond solitaire. Only 5% of grooms receive a man-gagement ring.
- 1.6 carats: average total weight of all stones in ring
- White gold represents 72% of the engagement ring market, followed by platinum (15%) and yellow gold (6%)
- More than 4 in 10 (42%) customize the ring: 27% took an existing ring style/design and made custom changes, while 15% completely custom-designed it
- The top four design elements are: prong setting (32%), halo/shared prong setting (16%), pavé setting/diamonds (15%), and channel setting/diamonds (10%)—but nearly one-third of brides are not familiar with these terms
- 1.1 carats: size of average center stone
- The most popular stone shapes: round (55%), princess (28%), cushion (5%), and Asscher (3%)
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