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Stopping him before the party is one possibility. Another is to accept the ring when it is offered to you at the party, only to return it to him immediately afterwards. Since he is your friend, I would advise against rejecting the gift if it is offered to you in front of a crowd, as that would hurt his feelings.
That said, you shouldn't cave into his unwanted pressure: if you don't want to keep the ring, don't keep it.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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