Before the Proposal Came the Ring (Part 2)

At this point we had been together almost 4 years, and despite talking a lot about marriage and rings, no actual shopping had been done.  I honestly assumed Daniel would want to shop for it on his own, and I told him that I 100% trusted his sense of my jewelry style since I loved everything he has bought me in the past.  Despite my reassurance, he decided he would really rather I went with him (because let's be honest, he knows I love this stuff and can be super picky).

So one Saturday, we picked a random jewelry store in our area and went for it!

On our way to go ring shopping! A selfie was obviously needed, because I was SO. EXCITED. / Personal Photo

Guys, I love to shop.  Shopping is not difficult for me, I can literally window shop for hours.  But this? This was frickin hard.  Especially when all we knew was what we didn't want.  Our salesperson was very patient with us, especially since we were being super awkward and silly about the whole thing (I felt like a teenager or something).

I think the hardest thing was that we were not interested in the ring styles that make up 85% of jewelry stores.  Also, the more rings I looked at the more sure I was that I wasn't crazy about any of them.  I realized I wanted something delicate, something sort of unique with interesting details, but still very classic.  I was open to yellow gold, but there was almost nothing in yellow gold to look at so we gave up on that pretty quickly.  I also decided I wanted either a round stone or an emerald cut.

The other issue that we found at every jewelry store we visited was that the second I told the salespeople I wasn't interested in a halo style ring and I wanted something simple, they automatically went for solitaires.  Now I LOVE solitaires, but I am planning on getting a plain wedding band and when I put a plain band next to the plain band of the solitaire, I just felt like it turned these beautiful, delicate rings to something that was just too thick on my finger.  The other issue I have with solitaires is the center stone is often set up fairly high.  I am super clumsy, so the thought of constantly worrying about hitting my ring on things was not appealing.

Our trip was not a bust though, after about an hour of looking through all the cases and trying things on I had found three drastically different styles that I was liking.

Please excuse the iPhone quality / Personal Photo

The first ring I liked had a round center stone and channel set diamonds along the sides.

Personal Photo

I liked the simplicity, and the channel set stones made it a little more interesting, but I couldn't help but feel like it's basically the same ring 80% of my friends currently have.  And I'm difficult, so I didn't like that.  I also worried about stuff getting down in between the side stones.

Personal Photo

This next one was the most unique ring we saw.  It has a round center stone and it is hard to tell in this photo but the sides had designs etched into it.  I loved the idea of it, but the actual design was not quite doing it for me.  

Personal Photo

Finally, there was this beautiful emerald cut ring with baguettes on the sides.  I love the vintage feel of this ring, and it was just barely edging the others out as my favorite.  I have long admired Mrs. Treasure's ring (from WeddingBee), so I was totally into this style.  It still just didn't quite feel like the right ring for me.  

We left with some ideas, but nothing solid.  I don't know if anyone else is like this, but when I got shopping I see something or try something on and I have these moments of just knowing is it perfect.  I was worrying a little that I was looking for that same feeling with ring shopping, and maybe it just wasn't going to happen. 

After that slightly disappointing trip, we waited several weeks before we went shopping again.  I had been itching to check out a local jewelry store, Gleim the Jewelers.  I see the owner, Georgie Gleim, at weekly meetings and knew they had an amazing estate collection.  I figured an estate piece gave me a good shot of finding something classic but a little unique.  So one evening we made the trek there and spent a couple of hours checking out their selection. And let me tell you, it. was. awesome.  

The salesperson was wonderful - so helpful and so knowledgeable.  She honed in on my style incredibly fast and brought us to a section of rings that gave me that moment! They were EXACTLY what I wanted, and I just knew it was the perfect style for me.  What was that?  Well we got distracted by the shiny objects and didn't take photos, but there were about 4 different rings all with the same basic settings:

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I just loved the look of the round center stone with baguette side stones.  I actually asked at the first store if they had anything in this style that I could see, but he didn't and tried to convince me it wouldn't look very nice.  

I was totally taken.  I couldn't believe that we had actually found something I loved so much!  The only downside?  Those suckers were expensive.  I did not know exactly how much Daniel was planning on spending, but I had a good idea that they were above what his price point was.  We left with me lusting after those rings hardcore, but trying really hard not to get my hopes up.

I was sure that was it, but Daniel insisted on looking more (I think to be sure I wasn't going to change my mind).  We spent one afternoon going store to store at our local mall, and all that did was convince me that the round stone with baguette side stones was the perfect style. 

So at this point, the process was out of my hands, and I just had to patiently wait. 

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Which I am terrible at.  In fact, I think Daniel thoroughly enjoyed messing with me while I tried reallyreallyreally hard to not go crazy.

Do all guys enjoy this?  Anyone else have trouble finding a ring they liked at normal jewelry stores?