My fiance is not the romantic type, and I mean not at all. I don't even know if his proposal is an official proposal. So, this is how it happened. One ordinary night on our way to dinner, he tells me he got something for me, and told me it was in the glove compartment. So, I casually open it to find a worn out little plastic bag. Unexpectingly (what can expect from an ugly plastic bag?), I pull out a ring. Words cannot describe my reaction. Well, maybe "confused" would work. What I was confused about was the fact that there was no center stone. It was only the mounting. Yep, that's right. He proposed without the rock. I asked if it was complete, and what this meant. He casually says that he felt it was about time, and wanted to see if I was up for it. Talk about sweeping me off my feet, "not." So, I agreed, but what about the rock? Apparently, he had ordered the rock separate from the mounting, and the rock didn't come in yet. During this time, I started to surf the net on wedding stuff, and I came across Michael Jay at michaeljay.com. They had insane deals on diamonds of all shape and sizes. I showed one fantastic deal on a heart diamond (2.47ct) to my fiance, and he was sold. We acted quickly and purchased the stone. Yeah, it may sound scary at first to think of buying such an expensive item online without see it. But I did some research and made sure it was a legitimate jeweler, and Michael Jay was very kind to comply with all my requests. So, I received my phenomenal stone and had it appraised for almost twice its cost. Sooo happy! The only thing now is that the original mounting cannot accomodate such a huge stone. So, we turned back to Michael Jay for a great deal on a new mounting and a matching band. He has done a fantastic job, and I would recommend him to anybody who ask. And yes, I was involved in the entire process. It was not romantic, but the upside is that I get what I want and at a great reasonable price. Anyone else picking out your own ring?
I picked out my own stone and ring... and it was extremely romantic all the way along-- even though he asked me at my work on a Saturday night after some pizza on his way out the door.
I did this too! We are both really picky and want to do things together. So we designed my engagement ring. It is gorgeous, and when you look at it the right way (it is a high setting) it makes the letter K on both sides which is be the first letter of our last name together. Anyways hows this for romantic the jeweler called me when it was done. But he made me wait for almost 4 months before popping the question. Sometimes I think I wish he would of done it all on his own. But with my 4 carat ring the center is 3 carats, I cant complain. Designing his ring together is next.
I went to the store and selected 3 settings that I liked. They made a note of it, and he came in later to pick one and select a stone. It worked out perfectly - I got a surprise ring, and he was confident that I'd like it.
After selecting settings, I was completely out of the loop. He even set up a big weekend get-away to throw me off the proposal trail. He completely surprised me in a very romantic way a month or so after picking out the ring.
I picked out my ring. He was out of the country and I was at a store and found an AMAZING estate ring that I loved at a price that I could not turn down (the ring even fit my big size 9 fingers). And he was relieved that 1) he knew I would love the ring and 2) that it was about 1/6 of the price we both expected. It was a non-traditional way to go but made for a great story and I could not be happier. (plus with the savings I may get to wedding bands instead of one )
I picked my ring out. I even wrote the check for it (I wasn't working at the time and we had a joint account, so I ran the "errand" to pick it up.) We eloped and he was out of town, so he didn't actually see my ring until our wedding day. It was an interesting arrangement to say the least. Gotta love busy lawyers...in trial in LA on Thurday, married in Las Vegas on the weekend, back to court on Tuesday. The judge and jury loved the story and he won the case!
I essentially picked out my own ring. DH and I were out of town for the weekend, and over brunch one morning he said "Well, I suppose you should think about whether you would want an engagement ring, and if so, what it would look like." Super romantic, right? I remember counting how many Bloody Marys he had drank, and thinking he couldn't possibly be drunk yet...
Never having been the kind of girl who obsessed about wedding stuff, and in general not being terribly girly, I actually had no idea. And it was really good that he asked me, because when I started looking around with a girlfriend, we discovered that I hated almost everything she loved - and apparently almost everything most women love, if you would believe the selection in most jewelry cases. Here is the setting I chose:
I took him to see the ring, and he loved it too. Then we shopped together for the center stone, which took us about another month to find - and in the process, we ended up having the setting custom made by the jeweler who found us the stone, rather than buying the pre-made settting. We are both so glad that we did it that way - the ring is perfect in every way, and completely a reflection of both our styles (as it should be), rather than just his idea of what I might like. And the process of picking it out together was very fun and romantic, and reflects our idea of what our relationship should be - a team in which we both do better together. Plus - seriously - spending that much money should be (IMO) a joint decision. Even when you're just engaged, given that you have the wedding to pay for - him putting way too much money on a card at that point in time would have significantly affected both of us, so it was appropriate that we made the decision about buying the ring together.
I did get the romatic proposal eventually. When the ring was finished, he picked it up and hid it for about a month, and then orchestrated a romantic weekend.
@soontobemrsk- do you have a picture of yours?, I can't quite picture what you are describing, exactly and it sounds interesting.
I should say that C. had input all the way along. We didn't want a traditional white diamond and he was instrumental in picking between 2 different yellow diamonds and two different rings. I like to think that C. has exquisite taste (but I'm biased!)
My fiance had picked out a ring, but wanted me to have something I would really love. We were out shopping one day and he took me into the jewellers, and had them bring out the ring he had chosen. I tried it on, and then the guy helping us had me try on like 50 more rings to "see how they felt".
I thought that what my fiance picked was beautiful, but the setting was a little "tall" for me - I'm a big ol' klutz and was worried about scratching myself. In the end, we found a different ring that had a slightly lower profile, but was still similar to what my fiance had picked. A few months later, the ring we picked together was on my finger, and we're both happy. :)
Congrats on getting engaged! After the first few months of your engagement not as many people will ask how he popped the question so you won't have to worry about you thinking it was less than romantic. You could also do what Charlotte from Sex and the City did when Trey "proposed" and sort of twist the story a bit. :) Anyone else remember that? I don't really recommend that...it was a cute episode though. I have found that it is often the proposals that are not quite as over-the-top, super involved and more low key can be more personal. Hopefully that's how it will be for you both when you look back on it.
My husband and I looked for my ering for months! I must have looked at every website in existence. Seriously. I am too picky to let my husband pick something out without any input from me. It did take away some of the romance and the surprise, but in the end I think it was worth it. We could not find anything we both liked but saw a lot of elements in a bunch of different rings we liked. So...we designed our own rings and combined all the separate things we liked into one ring. At first we thought designing our own ring was out of our budget but we found a place in the jewelry district in downtown LA that is very affordable! I totally recommend them for anyone in the LA area...PM me and I'll send you their info.
I couldn't be happier with the ring and I think, for us, it makes it more special that we designed it together. Eventhough...some of the element of surprise was lost.
I picked out my setting, and he picked the diamond. Besides the fact that I started looking at rings a long time before he proposed* (in my defense, we'd been together almost 11 years when we got engaged), I don't think he ever considered trying to pick one without my input. I'm glad he didn't, as my top few picks were completely different from each other, and looked totally different on me than they did in photos/on the web. The one I chose, he actually wasn't thrilled about when he saw it online, but once I showed it to him on my finger in the boutique, he agreed that it was just perfect for me.
*Actually he was the one who brought up the ring subject first, as he had seen a ring in an ad for a jeweler that he really liked, and actually clipped it out of the newspaper to show me. Once he showed it to me, I didn't love it, but it was like, GAME ON - I started looking at rings in earnest after that.
Yup. Basically he said, you're going to wear it for the rest of your life -- you should get what you want. He gave me a budget and let me do what I wanted with it. I also bought my stone separately and then had my local jeweler make a "knock off" of the Tiffany Novo Setting I was madly in love with.
I'm not the girl who's been planning her wedding since age 5. I also apparently don't like what 90% of women like in an engagement ring (a massive solitaire that makes it impossible to stick your hand in your pocket). So when we were seriously talking about marriage, I began looking at alternative ring options with my boyfriend. Jewelers told us pearls were out (protein is too soft & won't last), and beautiful black diamonds hard to come by. I made a "treasure chest" on FayCullen.com with art deco styles I loved, and he loved a lot of them, too. Something vintage or antique was also important for us due to the multitude of factors in the diamond trade.
We happened to relocate to a city with great antique shops about 5 months after seriously beginning our search. One day, we went to one on a whim (it also had great Yelp reviews, and despite its locale, was voted as not pretentious). I tried on a few rings, one in our price range, another a gorgeous cat's eye chrysoberyl/diamond cluster that was for another lifetime.
He proposed a couple of month's later with the beautiful art deco ring that was in our range (and fit perfectly in the shop)! I'd forgotten what it looked like, and every day I can't not look at it and wonder of its provenance. Shopping together was great for us. I'm a picky person, but also a very thankful one who loves a surprise. He was able to play up both of those parts of me!
My fiance is not the romantic type, and I mean not at all. I don't even know if his proposal is an official proposal. So, this is how it happened. One ordinary night on our way to dinner, he tells me he got something for me, and told me it was in the glove compartment. So, I casually open it to find a worn out little plastic bag. Unexpectingly (what can expect from an ugly plastic bag?), I pull out a ring. Words cannot describe my reaction. Well, maybe "confused" would work. What I was confused about was the fact that there was no center stone. It was only the mounting. Yep, that's right. He proposed without the rock. I asked if it was complete, and what this meant. He casually says that he felt it was about time, and wanted to see if I was up for it. Talk about sweeping me off my feet, "not." So, I agreed, but what about the rock? Apparently, he had ordered the rock separate from the mounting, and the rock didn't come in yet. During this time, I started to surf the net on wedding stuff, and I came across Michael Jay at michaeljay.com. They had insane deals on diamonds of all shape and sizes. I showed one fantastic deal on a heart diamond (2.47ct) to my fiance, and he was sold. We acted quickly and purchased the stone. Yeah, it may sound scary at first to think of buying such an expensive item online without see it. But I did some research and made sure it was a legitimate jeweler, and Michael Jay was very kind to comply with all my requests. So, I received my phenomenal stone and had it appraised for almost twice its cost. Sooo happy! The only thing now is that the original mounting cannot accomodate such a huge stone. So, we turned back to Michael Jay for a great deal on a new mounting and a matching band. He has done a fantastic job, and I would recommend him to anybody who ask. And yes, I was involved in the entire process. It was not romantic, but the upside is that I get what I want and at a great reasonable price. Anyone else picking out your own ring?
posted by Tulips 16 posts 4 months agoI picked out my own stone and ring... and it was extremely romantic all the way along-- even though he asked me at my work on a Saturday night after some pizza on his way out the door.
Congrats, and I'm so glad you are so happy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23094821@N00/2618770136/
posted by doctorgirl 157 posts 4 months agoI did this too! We are both really picky and want to do things together. So we designed my engagement ring. It is gorgeous, and when you look at it the right way (it is a high setting) it makes the letter K on both sides which is be the first letter of our last name together. Anyways hows this for romantic the jeweler called me when it was done. But he made me wait for almost 4 months before popping the question. Sometimes I think I wish he would of done it all on his own. But with my 4 carat ring the center is 3 carats, I cant complain. Designing his ring together is next.
posted by soontobemrsk24 23 posts 4 months agoI went to the store and selected 3 settings that I liked. They made a note of it, and he came in later to pick one and select a stone. It worked out perfectly - I got a surprise ring, and he was confident that I'd like it.
After selecting settings, I was completely out of the loop. He even set up a big weekend get-away to throw me off the proposal trail. He completely surprised me in a very romantic way a month or so after picking out the ring.
posted by peachypear 100 posts 4 months agoCONGRATS!!!
when searching for e-ring styles, we looked together.......i picked my top 3 fave and didnt hear anything about it for a while.
my FI picked one (happened to be my top pick!) and surprised me with a wonderful proposal.
i liked that i had input but he made the final choice. i think more and more women are involved in the process nowadays.
at least you like you ring!
posted by GetMarried4Less 403 posts 4 months agoI picked out my ring. He was out of the country and I was at a store and found an AMAZING estate ring that I loved at a price that I could not turn down (the ring even fit my big size 9 fingers). And he was relieved that 1) he knew I would love the ring and 2) that it was about 1/6 of the price we both expected. It was a non-traditional way to go but made for a great story and I could not be happier. (plus with the savings I may get to wedding bands instead of one
)
posted by emmeeay-L 12 posts 4 months agoI picked my ring out. I even wrote the check for it (I wasn't working at the time and we had a joint account, so I ran the "errand" to pick it up.) We eloped and he was out of town, so he didn't actually see my ring until our wedding day. It was an interesting arrangement to say the least. Gotta love busy lawyers...in trial in LA on Thurday, married in Las Vegas on the weekend, back to court on Tuesday. The judge and jury loved the story and he won the case!
posted by KateMW 483 posts 4 months agoI essentially picked out my own ring. DH and I were out of town for the weekend, and over brunch one morning he said "Well, I suppose you should think about whether you would want an engagement ring, and if so, what it would look like." Super romantic, right? I remember counting how many Bloody Marys he had drank, and thinking he couldn't possibly be drunk yet...
Never having been the kind of girl who obsessed about wedding stuff, and in general not being terribly girly, I actually had no idea. And it was really good that he asked me, because when I started looking around with a girlfriend, we discovered that I hated almost everything she loved - and apparently almost everything most women love, if you would believe the selection in most jewelry cases. Here is the setting I chose:
www.billbarnes.com/product.asp?product=6847
I took him to see the ring, and he loved it too. Then we shopped together for the center stone, which took us about another month to find - and in the process, we ended up having the setting custom made by the jeweler who found us the stone, rather than buying the pre-made settting. We are both so glad that we did it that way - the ring is perfect in every way, and completely a reflection of both our styles (as it should be), rather than just his idea of what I might like. And the process of picking it out together was very fun and romantic, and reflects our idea of what our relationship should be - a team in which we both do better together. Plus - seriously - spending that much money should be (IMO) a joint decision. Even when you're just engaged, given that you have the wedding to pay for - him putting way too much money on a card at that point in time would have significantly affected both of us, so it was appropriate that we made the decision about buying the ring together.
I did get the romatic proposal eventually. When the ring was finished, he picked it up and hid it for about a month, and then orchestrated a romantic weekend.
posted by suzanno 1,975 posts 4 months ago@suzanno- very nice ring
@soontobemrsk- do you have a picture of yours?, I can't quite picture what you are describing, exactly and it sounds interesting.
I should say that C. had input all the way along. We didn't want a traditional white diamond and he was instrumental in picking between 2 different yellow diamonds and two different rings. I like to think that C. has exquisite taste (but I'm biased!)
posted by doctorgirl 157 posts 4 months agosounds pretty! can we see a picture???
posted by hokouk77 22 posts 4 months agoMy fiance had picked out a ring, but wanted me to have something I would really love. We were out shopping one day and he took me into the jewellers, and had them bring out the ring he had chosen. I tried it on, and then the guy helping us had me try on like 50 more rings to "see how they felt".
I thought that what my fiance picked was beautiful, but the setting was a little "tall" for me - I'm a big ol' klutz and was worried about scratching myself. In the end, we found a different ring that had a slightly lower profile, but was still similar to what my fiance had picked. A few months later, the ring we picked together was on my finger, and we're both happy. :)
posted by marianneinvan 69 posts 4 months agoCongrats on getting engaged! After the first few months of your engagement not as many people will ask how he popped the question so you won't have to worry about you thinking it was less than romantic. You could also do what Charlotte from Sex and the City did when Trey "proposed" and sort of twist the story a bit. :) Anyone else remember that? I don't really recommend that...it was a cute episode though. I have found that it is often the proposals that are not quite as over-the-top, super involved and more low key can be more personal. Hopefully that's how it will be for you both when you look back on it.
My husband and I looked for my ering for months! I must have looked at every website in existence. Seriously. I am too picky to let my husband pick something out without any input from me. It did take away some of the romance and the surprise, but in the end I think it was worth it. We could not find anything we both liked but saw a lot of elements in a bunch of different rings we liked. So...we designed our own rings and combined all the separate things we liked into one ring. At first we thought designing our own ring was out of our budget but we found a place in the jewelry district in downtown LA that is very affordable! I totally recommend them for anyone in the LA area...PM me and I'll send you their info.
I couldn't be happier with the ring and I think, for us, it makes it more special that we designed it together. Eventhough...some of the element of surprise was lost.
posted by MrsSpitzer 75 posts 4 months agoI picked out my setting, and he picked the diamond. Besides the fact that I started looking at rings a long time before he proposed* (in my defense, we'd been together almost 11 years when we got engaged), I don't think he ever considered trying to pick one without my input. I'm glad he didn't, as my top few picks were completely different from each other, and looked totally different on me than they did in photos/on the web. The one I chose, he actually wasn't thrilled about when he saw it online, but once I showed it to him on my finger in the boutique, he agreed that it was just perfect for me.
http://whitneyboin.com/pages/womens/r1.htm
*Actually he was the one who brought up the ring subject first, as he had seen a ring in an ad for a jeweler that he really liked, and actually clipped it out of the newspaper to show me. Once he showed it to me, I didn't love it, but it was like, GAME ON - I started looking at rings in earnest after that.
posted by mtyf 230 posts 4 months agoYup. Basically he said, you're going to wear it for the rest of your life -- you should get what you want. He gave me a budget and let me do what I wanted with it. I also bought my stone separately and then had my local jeweler make a "knock off" of the Tiffany Novo Setting I was madly in love with.
http://calioc.blogspot.com/2008/07/with-this-ring.html
posted by caliocteach 720 posts 4 months agoI'm not the girl who's been planning her wedding since age 5. I also apparently don't like what 90% of women like in an engagement ring (a massive solitaire that makes it impossible to stick your hand in your pocket). So when we were seriously talking about marriage, I began looking at alternative ring options with my boyfriend. Jewelers told us pearls were out (protein is too soft & won't last), and beautiful black diamonds hard to come by. I made a "treasure chest" on FayCullen.com with art deco styles I loved, and he loved a lot of them, too. Something vintage or antique was also important for us due to the multitude of factors in the diamond trade.
We happened to relocate to a city with great antique shops about 5 months after seriously beginning our search. One day, we went to one on a whim (it also had great Yelp reviews, and despite its locale, was voted as not pretentious). I tried on a few rings, one in our price range, another a gorgeous cat's eye chrysoberyl/diamond cluster that was for another lifetime.
He proposed a couple of month's later with the beautiful art deco ring that was in our range (and fit perfectly in the shop)! I'd forgotten what it looked like, and every day I can't not look at it and wonder of its provenance. Shopping together was great for us. I'm a picky person, but also a very thankful one who loves a surprise. He was able to play up both of those parts of me!
posted by violetquagmire 8 posts 4 months ago