I tried on gobs of rings. Little rings, big rings. Diamond rings, gemstone rings. Rings with rocks as big as my face that cost more than my life, rings that were imitation everything that probably came from a gumball jewelry dispenser at CiCi's.....
On the first round of ring shopping, I took Laney. She's a good friend. We went to every jewelry store in the mall, and at the end of it I still wasn't sure of what I wanted. I found one at Kay Jewelers that was lovely but was one that cost as much as my life, and then I found a more reasonably priced one at Zales that Rob said looked like a football stadium (thanks again for that...). But then I was trying on rings with aquamarine as the center stone, not sure if I wanted a diamond. And that was just the first day.
Pretty much every time I was at the mall after that I looked through most if not all the jewelry stores. Diamond? Quartz? Square? Round? Matching diamondy band?
Finally I decided I wanted a vintage-feeling diamond ring that would go with a plain and simple band. So on that fateful day E said, "So, do you want to go look at rings?", I was ready with a plan.
But, I'm picky. We went to Kay and Helzberg, but didn't get very far. Next we went to Zales. The first thing I said to the person helping us was, "I'm very picky. I want something with a vintage feel that I can wear with a plain band. What have you got?". About ten rings and half an hour later, we're running out of options. Our darling sales lady says, "Hmm. Okay, I've got one more that fits your criteria. Let's try that.". And lo and behold, the heavens opened and the light shone down upon the sparkles radiating off my left hand. It was pretty magical. I looked at E and told him it was THE ring. We freaked out for a while before deciding to take a walk and talk it over. No less than 15 minutes later we were back in the store, handing over our credit cards to put that beautiful baby on layaway (thank you, America, for making that possible). For a while I seriously considered sending our sales lady flowers.
And now for a note about money and rings.....
E and I split the cost of the ring. We did this because:
1. Rings are expensive. I didn't expect or want him to fork over serious cash so I could just sit there and wear it.
2. I'm the one who gets to wear it, so I felt I should chip in.
3. We were and are against starting our life together in debt, and with combined funding, we could get a bigger ring sooner!
4. We're a team! Therefore, we are equals. We are each capable of earning a living, so why should it be his sole responsibility to foot the bill?
All that being said, that's just us. I think it's just as lovely for a man to save for months and secretly buy something wonderful (see: David and Meagan; Kaleigh and Austin). So no judgment on how you and yours went or will go about this issue, but I wanted to share where we stood.
So that's my story.
Stay tuned.
W & E
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