So if you haven’t read Bev’s version of this story yet, you probably shouldn’t read mine. That would be like watching the behind-the-scenes special features on the DVD before watching the actual movie. Which is lame. So don’t do that.
Besides, I’m not going to tell you the story in the order Bev experienced it. I’m going to tell you the story in the order in which it actually took place. And my part is definitely longer (ha! *insert wink emoji*), which means that my part of the story is going to come in like four installments or something.
I don't really have any cool pictures for my post like Bev has for hers...so here is a picture of us being eaten by a shark.
There’s a lot of faith in here too, so…I hope you like faith.
The One Ring *said in a big, loud, booming voice that has some echo on it…for effect*
So maybe that title is a little dramatic…and a little nerdy. Also inaccurate, given that in the end there will actually be two rings. Anyway, if you didn’t catch that reference, you’re just confused anyway.
At first, I had no clue what kind of ring I was going to get her, but that’s okay because she didn’t really know what kind of ring she wanted either. However, both of us, without having discussed it, wanted it to be unique. Also, I didn’t know how I was going to come up with the money to afford a ring that I thought would be good enough for her. What I knew was two things:
- Since the Lord was leading me to propose to Bev, He would provide the resources to do it.
- Since I was setting an example for my future children (and other men) in this process, I did not want to purchase the ring using credit or financing. *chants* Cash Only Out Here In These Streets! C.O.O.H.I.T.S.! (I suggested this to Wu-Tang Clan, but they decided to go with C.R.E.A.M. I still stand by mine.)
“Since the Lord was leading me to propose to Bev, He would provide the resources to do it.”
I made my first bumbling trip into a Zales before I had any money to afford anything at all just to get an idea of what was out there, and I ended up running into an acquaintance of mine who was also one of my father’s former students. I hadn’t seen her in years, and she didn’t even live in this area when I knew her. Cool! It’s a sign, right? I should pick one and buy it from her and OMG THEY HAVE FINANCING OPTIONS I COULD BUY IT TODAY OMG!
No. Everything’s not a sign, deep Christians. Gosh.
But we did look at the different options, and I learned that a good ring did not have to cost as much as I thought. Please don’t spend 1/3 of your annual salary on a ring. Not unless it is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath ring with a decent front yard.
That’s not to say that I didn’t have to make sacrifices. Among other things, I scaled breakfast down to 1 cupful of cereal, and I scaled my lunch back to one pb&j sandwich per day. People at work even had jokes about my lunch. But I had a goal. And I had a plan (sort of).
The raging fires of my incendiary imagination. It gets kinda crazy in there.
I still didn’t have any clue as to what kind of ring I was going to buy. Fortunately, Jesus knew I was clueless and sent His buddy Pinterest. All it took was one random pin and a passing comment from Bev to set aflame the raging fires of my incendiary imagination. Fires that would eventually smelt the mental ore of the final engagement ring into being.
You can’t tell me those last couple sentences weren’t fantastic. You’re welcome.
Bev mentioned in passing that she saw a ring that was very interesting because it was designed to look like the threefold cord mentioned in Ecclesiastes 4:12 (look it up—you probably haven’t read your Bible yet today anyway. I’m even taking care of your devotional time for you—again, you’re welcome). Outwardly I said, “Oh cool.” Inwardly, I said, “OMG WHERE IS A PEN I NEED TO WRITE THIS DOWN IMMEDIATELY.”
As soon as I got the chance, I started my work of spending hours on websites like Zales, Kay, Google, and Pinterest trying to find this ring that she mentioned. And anyone who knows anything about my shopping habits knows that before I buy anything (literally anything), I have to look at every option there is. Twice. And if the gift is especially important, I may just end up designing and making it my own self because my perfectionist behind is never happy with anything, especially not after I get a picture in my head of what I want it to look like. And throughout this search, none of the stores had what I was looking for. That is until I came across the Todd Alan Studios website (www.handwovenbands.com). His rings looked almost exactly like what I was picturing!
They sell rings that are made of strands of precious metal wound together just like a threefold cord. They are custom made for each order. So I got to choose the metals from which each strand was made. I decided to have two white gold strands to represent me and my future wife and one rose gold “God strand.”
Then came the issue of the diamond(s). Gentlemen, please do your own research on stones before you purchase them. Find information sources that are not trying to sell you something and learn about the reasoning behind diamond pricing. There are so many psychological tricks that the diamond industry plays in order to get you to spend more money than you really need to spend. This will literally save you thousands of dollars that you can put to use on other good things for your bride. One really great site to check out would be www.diamonds.pro.
“There are so many psychological tricks that the diamond industry plays in order to get you to spend more...”
I ended up using www.jamesallen.com to find the stone. They have very powerful search engines, and they allow you to inspect every stone from every angle at 60x magnification so that you know exactly what you are getting. They also give you every measurement and all rating information available about the stone. And then they still do an additional inspection themselves before sending it. This is clearly the perfect retailer for Rob the Needer-of-All-the-Information-About-Everything-Ever-In-Life. In my opinion, it was an even better experience than going to the store to buy one.
To make sure that I wasn’t doing something stupid, I then had to secretly run all of my ideas past Bev’s best friend, whose phone number I did not have. Additionally, I didn’t actually have a picture of the ring to show her, since it was going to be custom made. Well, guess who realized that Instagram direct works almost as well (me)! And guess who knows how to alter photos to show people what something MIGHT look like (me)! AND guess who loved all my ideas! Me again. But also her!!
Time to move forward! With your day. It's time to move forward with your day. You’ll have to wait for the rest of the story until the next installment.