Let me upgrade you: Wives refine rings

NEW YORK -- When Elizabeth Robichaux Brown got married nine years ago, she made a vow to love her husband, for better or for worse, until their dying days.

She did not make that same kind of commitment to her ring.

She did what more and more women are doing: She gave her original engagement ring an upgrade, placing two stones -- which she calls "the twins" -- on each side of her solitaire diamond.

"When I first got my ring, it was like, 'OK, I like this ring.' But I knew that eventually I would make it a different type of ring," she said.

While Brown added on, some women are trading in. No longer seen as a symbol to be worn for an eternity, rings are being upgraded like some people trade in cars or remodel an aging kitchen.

"I started hearing it about a decade ago," said jewelry designer Carol Brodie, who was the communications director for the prestigious Harry Winston and is now curator of Rarities Fine Jewelry for HSN. "It didn't necessarily mean bigger, it didn't necessarily mean better -- trading up means more about lifestyle."

But sometimes it is about bigger, better -- and more fashionable. While gold bands were standards for decades, today many women wear white gold, platinum or other metals; and cuts and settings change, too.

Some stores even promote the idea of an upgrade when a ring is purchased, offering trade-in value for the original ring for something more spectacular.

There is also the idea of the "pushing present" -- getting a new diamond for giving birth to a child.

Annie Loughead, married for three years, got her ring upgrade right after the birth of her daughter. Loughead said she had designs on a new design for her ring, however, almost as soon as it landed on her finger.

Like Brown, she got a solitaire diamond; hers was a classic, Tiffany-cut, 2.1-carat ring. As a wedding band, she actually got two rings with small diamonds all around them, to sandwich her solitaire.

She loved it, but "now that I have a baby ... it's a pain to have three different rings," Loughead said.

Loughead was initially hesitant to broach the subject for fear of hurting her husband: "he was like, 'No, get whatever makes you happy."'

Brodie said sometimes it's the man who actually makes the first move.

"When people are trading up, I've often seen the man coming in," she said. "Then they bring the woman back with them to narrow down the decision-making, and then the man comes back and makes the purchase."

Not all men are easygoing about having the band they purchased exchanged for another. When the conversation came up at a recent couples dinner, the husbands scoffed at the idea of "trading up" on their purchase -- "What if he wants to upgrade her?" one joked.

Flynn says sometimes women make up excuses -- "it hurts my finger" is a good one.

"They don't want to insult their husbands and whoever picked it out," she said.