Diamonds are forever — but if your fiancé proposes with this engagement ring style, the relationship may not last, according to folks like Asia Frances.
“I was proposed to with a cluster ring,” Frances, 34, a now-divorced mother of two from Philadelphia, told The Post of her engagement loop, a silver trinket topped with a small rectangle filled with a sea of 0.01-carat diamond chips. “I was so disappointed.”
“It was a ‘shut up ring,’” Frances groaned of her trifle. “It was just given to hush my incessant desire for marriage [during our] stagnant relationship.”
And she’s far from the only forlorn fiancée to be muzzled with the undesirable bauble.
In fact, the trending hashtag ShutUpRing is skyrocketing to viral glory with more than 10 million TikTok views.
Online, women like Frances are advising others against accepting a cluster ring — more cheekily known on the internet as a “diamond dust ring” — believing that men who choose that ring style lack a genuine interest in tying the knot.
The clustered finery, officially known as a composite diamond ring, is meant to create the illusion of one huge rock. The inexpensive piece can come with a price tag as low as $300, which is a mere fraction of the $3,000 cost for a 1-carat diamond ring, a representative for Manhattan gem purveyors Magnolia Jewelers told The Post.
A cluster diamond ring was far from what Frances was hoping to get, especially since she spent most of 2013 nagging her then-boyfriend of two years to pop the big question. The nurse turned self-help influencer would often drop a few not-so-subtle hints about wanting to get hitched, such as inundating him with pictures of her dream jewel, a hulking princess-cut solitaire.
A fed-up Frances finally gave him an ultimatum: You either step up or we break up.
But when her fuss-worn honey, whom she chose not to name for privacy purposes, finally asked for her hand in January 2014 — proposing at an upscale eatery in Philadelphia’s Center City, but refusing to get down on bended knee — the wannabe wife was taken aback by his tawdry token of affection.
Frances, who got married in March 2016, ultimately ended the union in February 2022 due to irreconcilable differences with her ex — proving the ring was indeed a red flag.
“Men, even ones who hate you, will give you a shut up ring just to keep you around,” warned content creator Nati Bernal, from Miami. “I’ve seen those marriages end. It never works [because] there’s no love there, it’s not for real.”
Brooklyn native Melissa Watkins, 45, urged women to “just say ‘No!,’” when a guy tries wooing them with the underwhelming bijou.
“We’ve got to stop letting these men buy us cluster diamond rings,” she encouraged in a TikTok clip that garnered nearly 668,000 views.
“Did you win the Super Bowl? Are you, perhaps, a WWE wrestler?,” Watkins asked rhetorically. “Then why did your man give you this ring?”
And former jewelry dealer Dina Folgia, 25, remembered being stunned at how little shut-up ring shoppers valued their would-be wives.
“Every man who came in looking for this specific type of ring … would ask, ‘Is it under $1,000?,’” she recalled. “And I would think to myself, ‘[Your girlfriend] is really only worth $500 to you, bro?.’”
A Magnolia Jewelers spokesperson told The Post that the cost and quality of an engagement ring often reflect the quality of the relationship.
“The ring is a symbol of their love and promise,” said the rep — who noted that oval-, pear- and emerald-cut rings, rather that clusters, are currently the preferred styles amongst newly or soon-to-be engaged women in Gotham. Lab-grown diamonds are, too, in high-demand.
“It’s an indication of your relationship with your significant other and how well you know him or her,” added the insider.
Lishai Brown, founder of The Jewelry Standard in Manhattan, agrees.
“There are men that go for the [cluster] style to look like they spent more than they did,” Brown, known as the “diamond queen” online, told The Post. “Your engagement ring should be special — this can be a huge red flag!”
Frances hopes other women take heed of the writing on the wall before taking the plunge.
“Marriage is only great if all parties involved want it,” she said. “It is a red flag to if you have to ask for a ring multiple times, and then you get the opposite of what you asked for.”
“Shut rings are designed to keep you docile,” said Frances.
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