I don't think it's really about either of those things all the time (although I'm sure it's all sorts of things at different times for different people). From

I don't think it's really about either of those things all the time (although I'm sure it's all sorts of things at different times for different people). From my experience with my wife, I think it was much more practical. Really for her I think it was mostly like "I want to take this seriously and am going to be wearing this ring (or displaying something) all the time and so want to be sure I know what it is and that it's durable." She doesn't really wear jewelry at all except for her wedding and engagement ring, so she just hadn't thought about engagement rings or jewelry very much period. A diamond was a known quantity, something she could trust, something neutral in color, durable, and so forth. The metal artist that we went to really liked moissanite but at the time it was the first we had heard of it. At the time synthetic diamonds were more something on the horizon than something you could actually buy. I think if she had known about moissanite earlier and had time to get familiar with it she probably would have been happy with it.