After when she went home to Ukraine nobody understood anything. She was wearing a ring, but nobody had been invited for a wedding. :-) Be understanding if your girl doesn't want a ring until marriage, because it might cause quite a confusion.

Now, about diamonds or not is a matter of taste I think. I offered it to her, but because of the price we decided that if we wanted diamonds we would put it on later. We haven't done it so far.

My personal opinion is that wedding rings are something you use everyday and everywhere you go. E.g. if you're visiting your wifes relatives in a village, or going for vacation to a poor country full of children begging for money, diamonds might be a little distasteful. Diamonds are something special that maybe only should be weared on special occations? Buuut, it's really a matter of personal taste.

I guess the logic being, why give her the best up front.  If her love is true, she will stay the course of time and then you can reward her love with an expensive ring.

You do what you want but I do not think that you want to treat your FSU lady less than you would an AW. She will notice that other women have a diamond ring all of varying sizes. How do you think that is going to make her feel?

One Ukraine girl, came here 2 years ago when she was 19 has her husband buying her everything in site (jewelry, new car, and now a new $300,000 home) and goes and brags about it to all of the "good" FSU women. Needless to say these FSU women do not think much of her, including my wife. This youg bride had the audacity of telling me that no woman would marry me for anything less than one months salary expenditure on a ring. My wife is very happy with her 1/3 carat, and she did not let me spend more than $800...it was her idea!

I heard one story my wife told me was a total scam:
this woman from St. Petersburg was angry with her russian boy friend and hooked up with a man from my city, she came on a fiance visa and then married....at the first opportunity went back to Russia to be with the boyfriend again...6 months later she wants to come back...and so it is told the bridge was burned and now she is stuck in an abusive relationship with her russian boyfriend.

Not all relationships are bad, some work very well indeed.
I have meet several mid 30's women that are very happy with their husbands, even though they do not have much to show for in way of materialistic demands, they came here for the relationship and not so much the country or wealth of their husband.

By the way, my wife tells me everything...sometimes more about people than I want to know!

The ring settings and stone cuts will be different, so your taste and hers may argue for looking here instead of there.  We both liked the simpler setting and deeper cut on the stone that we could get there.

Also, about wedding bands, remember the gold there is smelted with copper and has a slightly pinkish tint.  We preferred that to the brassier look you get here, so we bought both of our gold bands there instead of here.

Good luck,

Steve M.