Millennials are changing the engagement ring industry

Community tomorrow is valentine's day... and it's one of the top days for people to get engaged.

Here in america, getting a ring is often the standard procedure... but what's on that ring or what it's made of is changing... particularly with young couples.

Local news 8's chris nestman is here in studio.

Chris... what kinds of changes are we seeing with engagement rings?

There are several big trends with rings... but probably the two biggest is customization... and that almost anything goes... it just depends of the couple.

Main street diamonds in rexburg has been around since 1985.

Since that time they've seen big changes in the buying habits of soon-to-be engaged couples.

It used to be that couples would come in and pick from about thirty available designs.

Now... rick merrill, owner of main street diamonds, rexburg " would say 70 percent of my customers bring me a picture and say can you make this.

So we do a lot of custom work."custom and unique was on of the common themes i found when talking to young newly wed... or engaged couples.

John & sydney decker " think... i mean for us it made sense to go custom because their wasn't anything that matched right out of the store that i liked.being different means using alternative stones... unique designs... and a variety of metals.

Stephanie gibson, recently engaged "i liked the color contrast that my ring has with the rose gold and the silver, so we decided to go that route.""we did red, white, a blue.

So we did diamonds, sapphires, and ruby's."

Usin alternatives to traditional diamonds is also an easy way to save money.

One of the most common is moissanite... an artificial gem stone that looks just like a diamond.

"for example a one kara diamond would range from five thousand to seven thousand dollars.

A one karat moissanite is between $350 and $450."

Around $400 for a rock isn't too bad... but even some couples go cheaper.

"so on your wedding day, yo guys just had $40 rings?

Yep!

Yep, we just exchanged those and yeah that's what we wore."

The lafonds are an example of a couple where instead of one expensive ring... they have several cheap ones.

""so this one is my engageme ring that jacob bought me, it was like $90.

And then this is band, the original band, its tungston carbite.

We got it online, those are nice because they don't scratch.

And then this set i got at walmart for $40 and its... because i wanted to look pretty."

Another thing driving the changes in rings is technology.

With 3-d printing and laser cut precision... ring designs can potentially be a lot more intricate than they used to be.

Reporting live in studio... i'm chris nestman.

Thank you chris.

One final change from years past is the amount of involvement girls have in picking the ring.

Jewelers say it's a lot more common for both the future husband and wife to make decisions on the ring's design.

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