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When I got married I had no money, so I proposed without a ring and my grandmother bought us some simple gold bands. I'm since divorced but to her credit my ex wife never, ever cared about money and never tried to scale up our lifestyle when I started making more.
My current girlfriend also doesn't care, if I buy a new toy (and I have a few) she's happy for me. She makes decent money, but although I make more than 20 times more than her she never tries to keep track and nor does she expect me to get her expensive presents or pay for anything for her. She never looks at what her girlfriends have, she just wants to work hard, be successful in her own right, and feel good about her own contributions to our relationship.
And THAT is why she's marriage material. Attitude is everything. Not just financially, but with everything. You want someone that is going to be a good partner and support you through everything, not someone that judges you by what you can do for them. You better believe if my girlfriend had started making demands about rings or expensive weddings or cars or gifts or anything else she would be gone in a heartbeat. There are a lot of reasons marriages can fail, but if you're going into a marriage with huge glaring red flags that you choose to overlook you have only yourself to blame when things get stressful and eventually fall apart.
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