medium cartier santos,
a bronze iwc chronograph with a tropical green dial
an UNOBTAINABLE retail rolex datejust or submariner
Omega speedmaster hasilite/saphire
Omega seamaster jamesbond
a classical JLC reversso
zenith el primero
a tudor chronograph reverse panda

a reasonably stated list for you

The best starter watch is no doubt the Rolex Datejust. My starter watch was the Datejust too and it was my only watch for almost a decade.

It has everything going for it to be an everyday wear watch. A simple calendar aka date function, 100m water resistance and a tough as nails bracelet + clasp.

The Speedmaster is nice but it’s not practical as a first watch due to the manual winding which you need to wind up every morning or at least every other morning. It also only has 50m water resistance and non screw down crown which makes water sports activities a bit difficult.

Cartier is also only 50m water resistance and if you get it on leather strap, you can’t get it wet. On bracelet, it is more prone to scratches due to the many shiny parts.

Nothing beats a Datejust for toughness and practicality. It’s a great starter watch to learn about good mechanical watch habits before you venture into more delicate movements or fine finishing and even ETA quirks like not being able to quick set the date between 9pm and 3am. Rolex movement is bulletproof and as a beginner in my early twenties, I managed to fuck up my DJ twice and even managed to crack the sapphire crystal from falling off my bike. But every single time, a quick visit to Rolex spa made it as good as new.

Here’s my 20 year old Datejust, purchased new when I was 21 years old. I still wear it in rotation up to this day.

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Nobody gets a Seiko as a wedding watch bro. Might as well get a proper wedding ring if willing to spend only a few hundred ringgit on a watch.

50m is good for swimming if you take the effort to get the water resistance checked yearly at Swatch Group. For the Datejust, you can easily go years without checking the WR due to better seals and how it is constructed (oyster case and twinlock crown).

It’s a common misconception on watch forums that 50m is good enough for swimming.

Yes, it can take a plunge but only when it’s new. Once the seals age, it will leak. 50m watches have only a single seal on the crown unlike Submariners with their triple seals (triplock) or Datejusts with double seals (twinlock system).

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Source : https://thewatchmaker.com/water-resistance-101/

He said his budget is 30-40k for a wedding watch. So, I believe a Datejust is around that price, even at the grey market.

depends wat you engrave, I remember Paul Newman one got engraving