Okay, it’s not what you think. Actually, I don’t think the correct term is disengaged, but you know what I mean… However, I am without a ring. It’s not lost, but has been returned. For a full refund of course. Today was the day we designed my perfect ring. Let me tell you how awesome it was to be a part of the process.
The day started at 9 am this morning. We had to shovel all the snow on the driveway and clean my car :S That took half an hour, and finally we were on our way downtown. We walked into Howard Fine Jewelers and were immediately greeted by a lady behind a desk. She asked us a few questions, swiped her badge, pressed a button and let us in. We met with our sales lady at around 10 am. She was amazing and extremely patient. I told her exactly what I wanted (or what I thought I wanted) and brought samples out for us to look at and for me to try on. The one other awesome thing that they do at Howards, is offer you drinks (from their fully stocked bar) and pastries. Since it was 10 am, we went with the some coffee and hot chocolate.
Okay, so after looking at a few diamonds, what I thought I wanted, was something I didn’t like at all. :S It was a big NO to a cushion cut diamond. It was very underwhelming when looking at it beside a radiant diamond. Mind you, it was beautiful, it just wasn’t what I was looking for, nor do I think it would suit me. So my second choice immediately became my first. They didn’t have any diamonds in that had the specific specs that we wanted, so we had to come up with some parameters for them to go by when they search for the diamond. Actually there was one point that I almost completely flip floped and went with a round diamond. Man, those are huge. lol
So after we chose the diamond, we started to look at the bands that they had. I had a pretty good list of the things I want and did NOT want to have on my ring. I’ve mentioned this in my previous post, but I’ll reiterate.
- Platinum or White Gold (after hearing the pros and cons we went with platinum)
- 4 Prong Setting, but NOT North, East, South, West oriented (Check)
- Cathedral or Tapered (Cathedral, we decided I didn’t like the tapered look)
- Thin band (Okay, so I originally thought that the diamond would look a lot bigger with a thin band, which it does, but we decided that a little big thicker would be best.)
- Wedding Band and Engagement ring would have to seamlessly piece together. (Okay, so currently it doesn’t, based on the ring we chose, but it can always be done. At a price mind you, we’ll figure this out when we get there. It’s possible, so I’m not too worried about this right now)
So I ended up with the ring of my dreams (well not exactly, I don’t think I ever dreamt about a ring, nor did I go there knowing exactly what I wanted). Okay, I retract that statement. I got the ring that suits Dennis and I best and it’s a ring that if I ever did dream about it, it would be this one. Mind you, this process took us almost 4 hours. But well worth the time and effort.
I think all women would love this process. I was still surprised by the engagement, but Dennis gave me the opportunity to get exactly what I wanted. Mind you, we did have a budget which I had to stay within, which some guys may not want to disclose to their future wives, but in our case, we wanted to be comfortable with what he was spending. Apparently the jewelery store was devising a plan to hide this from me, but Dennis told them it wasn’t necessary, so it’s definitely doable if that’s the way you want to go.
So as I said, I am without a ring for the next few weeks. 
So if a ring determines whether or not your engaged, then I’m disengaged until it’s ready for pick up. But in reality, I think we’ve been engaged, actually, even married for about 4 years now :S We just need to make this official, so we may as well have as much fun as we can till we get there 
