Is your ring perfect?
Lucky you! Consider yourself blessed.
Because I often hear from brides (and again, just last week, from a bride in my cottage):
“It’s beautiful, but Just Not Me.”
“I wish he’d asked me what I wanted.”
“It’s lovely, but it’s not quite right, and that makes me feel terrible.”
When the ring isn’t quite right, some brides are sent down a rabbit hole of anxiety:
“If he knew me better,” they think,” he’d never have gotten a ring that looks like this. Doesn’t he know I’m more eclectic than classic? Does this mean he really doesn’t know me?”
Do you see how brides get worked up about their engagement rings?
Stop. Don’t go there. Here’s why:
Consider how your fiance chose your ring.
Step 1: Extensive internet research, schooling himself on cut, color, clarity. This is all new and foreign territory to him. Before proposing to you, it’s safe to say that he put ZERO thought into engagement rings. He’s a total beginner.
Step 2: Enter jewelry shop for first time. He’s entered new and foreign territory and is required to plunk down a big chunk of change he doesn’t really understand.
Step 3: Unwittingly allow jeweler (who needs to move inventory) to persuade him into a ring. Has the jeweler ever met you before? Seen YOUR style and aesthetic? Didn’t think so…
In the jewelry store, he’s flying blind. A total beginner.
He may also not have an awareness of or appreciation for aesthetic nuances — white vs. yellow gold. Pear vs. princess vs. emerald cut vs radiant. What “vintage” means to you.
Consider this analogy: Say you want to buy your fiance an engagement gift. Something as expensive as your ring, and something meaningful to him. But something you know nothing about.
Let’s pretend he’s a fly fisherman (fly rods can be super expensive), and you decide on a top-of-the-line rod. So you go online, do research, learn about options, prices, add-ons. And you quickly become overwhelmed. Out of your depths.
So you do a little covert research, asking him subtle questions, sneaking peeks at the gear he already owns. And you research again, this time at the Orvis store. Salespeople ask you questions about his taste, techniques, conditions he fishes in….questions that you can’t even begin to answer. They try to sell you (and upsell you, and upsell you, and upsell you). Until finally you say, “I have no clue what I’m doing, but this looks good enough to me. I really hope he likes it.”
As he unwraps the gift, you feel anxious, nervous and vulnerable. You’ve just laid down a lot of cash, and you don’t even know if you’re in the ballpark. If he’ll even like it, because you made your best guess, because you’re a complete beginner at buying a fly rod.
That’s exactly what your fiance went through buying your ring.
Your fiance put enormous thought, effort, and money into it. He did his absolute best.
But he’s NOT you. He can’t intuit what you want, what you’ve been dreaming about, what latest style of ring has captured your attention. He’d not a mind reader.
If your ring is Just Not Me, see his effort for what it truly is: love.
See the money he paid for it as love.
See the time he put into buying it as love.
See the vulnerability he felt giving it to you as love.
See his willingness to make adjustments or buy a new ring as love
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t know you. It means he’s a beginner at buying engagement rings.
So, please cut the guy some slack and take my one piece of advice about your engagement ring: See all his effort, research, time and money as the love for you that it is.
