The Ring

Although the proposal details are up to Lu, I wanted to make sure that I had some input on the ring. I know that some women want the ring to be a surprise, but if I'm going to wear a piece of jewelry every, single day, I want to make sure I absolutely love it.

A ring looks different in a catalog or online than it does in the store, and a ring in a display case looks different than when it's on your hand. Since I hadn't tried on engagement rings before, I wasn't even sure which direction to point Lu in, so we went ring-shopping together. Sure enough, finding the right ring wasn't a simple task.

Lu and I went to five different stores on three different trips before I saw "my" ring.  When I slipped that ring on my finger, I sighed, squealed, and did the thing where I held my hand out and admired it from afar.  From that point on, I didn't want to look at any more rings, and I gushed about that ring on our trip home.  I made sure to leave Lu with no question in mind as to what ring I wanted.

The only "problem" is that the ring that I want is smaller and less expensive than the ring that Lu originally wanted to give me. On our first ring-shopping trip, Lu was immediately drawn to the one-carat-plus solitaires with the several thousand dollar price tags. They were beautiful, but they were big...  way too big for my child-size hands.

To give you an idea of how small my hands are, my ring size is around a 5 1/4. The average woman wears a size 7, which would be loose on my thumb. Most 10-year-olds have hands bigger than mine. Needless to say, when I put on those huge rocks, I looked like I had been playing in my mother's jewelry box.

This was disappointing to Lu because, for better or worse, the proposal and the ring are a direct reflection on the man. The first two questions that people generally ask when they hear about an engagement are:

1) How'd he propose?

2) Can I see the ring?

...not necessarily in that order. The ring is Lu's time to shine, or rather, sparkle vicariously through the diamond on my finger. Most men take this job very seriously.

When you ask a woman her version of the proposal, it's usually pretty simple, "We were at this place, on this day, for this reason. He gave me the ring this way, and I said, 'Yes.' It was great!"

You ask a man about the proposal, and you better be prepared to take a seat. He will give you the play-by-play details from the minute he came up with his great idea until the time that he went down on one knee and popped the question. These stories are much more entertaining than the woman's version, and I've already decided that Lu will tell our proposal story whenever we're together and someone asks.

Men may not care about chair covers or flowers, but the ring and the proposal will always be theirs.

One friend recalled his year-long proposal preparations, including that he had to arrange to fly halfway across the country to get the diamond from his grandmother. While he was planning the perfect proposal and taking great care to get a ring that had sentimental value, his then-girlfriend/now-wife was losing patience with his "lack of commitment to their future." 

He even confided, "A few times I just wanted to get it over with or tell her 'I have the ring. Just wait for goodness sake!' But I really knew that she wanted it to be special and would appreciate the thought I put into it."

Another currently-engaged friend asked me if we'd already picked out rings together. When I said that we had, she proceeded to ask if he'd gotten me the ring that I wanted. This question made me pause, "Why wouldn't he have gotten the ring that I so obviously fawned over?"

It turns out that her fiance decided to get a bit "creative" with her engagement ring. Although they picked out the ring together, he wanted to add an extra twist. My friend has a gorgeous ring and her fiance planned a wonderful proposal, but her story clearly demonstrates that men want to stand out and be unique in the engagement process. It's not just about the woman.

I'm pretty confident that the ring that I picked out is small enough to look flattering on my hand but has the size and sparkle to feed Lu's pride.... I just hope that he feels the same way.

Posted in: proposal, ring