In looking through old posts, I realized that I told you all about our engagement story and even the wedding, but I didn’t finish telling you about the ring. As I mentioned in the first segment, there had been quite a bit of drama surrounding my engagement ring. Let me say up front: I’m not usually difficult or even terribly vain. It’s just that the ring we got from the jewelers was so completely different from what we had requested, that I was a bit frustrated (that’s an understatement really). While I laugh at it now, at the time, it was so important and so stressful.
You see, during our first visit to the jewelers, I had given them a brochure showing the ring I wanted them to design and make for me. It was to be a replica of the ring I had found at the Bvlgary store, a ring that I loved but that was way out of our budget. According to the jeweler, he could make the same ring for a fraction of the cost. So he took the pictures and he made a wax mold of the ring. We tried it on and everything looked pretty good at that point, although it was hard to tell for sure since the wax was green which somehow detracted from the overall effect.
That was the last time I saw the ring until that wonderful day in San Francisco when the CPA asked me to marry him. Because I had such high expectations, I was feeling rather anxious as it was to be the big “unveiling.” Once I had gotten over the shock of the first ring (which he had thrown into the ocean), I remember opening the beautiful wood box that held my real ring. I stared down at the shiny platinum and then my stomach sank. While very pretty, the ring staring back at me was not at all like the ring I had shown the jeweler, the one that had teased me from the pages of the Bvlgari catalog.
Instead, the ring my jeweler had made looked like this. From the top of the ring, it wasn’t too bad. Quite a bit thicker and bulkier than I wanted, but still, it was fine.
It was the side of the ring that bothered me. There was a huge hole drilled into the metal underneath the diamond and it was very noticeable. (You have to look hard to see it in the picture below, but it’s there.)
Also, the way the diamond was suspended made it look shallow.
Again, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal except that we had put a lot of time and effort (and money) into this and of course we wanted it to be perfect. After all, this was to be the ring I would be wearing for the next 50 plus years, right?
So when we got back from our trip, I asked the jeweler why there was a hole in the ring. He said it was for the ease of putting in the diamond. I was a little confused. I had never seen such a hole in any other professionally made ring so I asked if he could fix it. He took it back and started over.
By this time, we had made several visits to the jewelers over the course of a few months and I was getting a bit frustrated as were they, I’m sure. The wedding was just around the corner and I was beginning to wonder if the ring I wanted was even possible. So I told them to forget the original design and to make something simple and I’d just stick two bands on either side and call it good.
And that’s exactly what they did. I ended up getting a simple solitaire with two bands on either side. The rings were finished about two days before the wedding.
When I think back on all of the time and effort spent on this project, I laugh, because it was such a process! If I had it to do over again, I would definitely do it differently – I would just walk into a store and pick a ring from the display. We thought we were going to save all of this money by getting a replica made of the ring I wanted. By the time everything was said and done, it ended up costing around the same amount as the Bvlgary ring would have, if not more.
Moral of the story: don’t stress so much over the little things.
(Sometimes I have to learn lessons like that the hard way.)
What about you – were you surprised with your ring or did you pick it out yourself? Were you pleased with it?
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