An Indecent Proposal

I'm not the kind of girl who used to daydream about her engagement or wedding or what have you. Did I wonder about my future husband? Sure. But the details never interested me much. Happiness, love, family, those are things that captured my imagination, which based on how this engagement came about, is probably for the best.

Skywriting? Too obvious.

We all hear of those really crazy, out-there proposals. Airplanes writing "Marry Me" in smoke, men getting down on one knee during large sporting events, or pulling out a ring on national television. The sorts of public-forum proposals that make me cringe. Then there are those... uh... even more special sort of proposals. I actually have a friend who proposed to his future (ex) wife over a tin of Altoids, proclaiming that they were "mint" for each other, and he was prepared to make a "commit-mint" to her. I have another acquaintance who was proposed to over breakfast. No, literally over breakfast. When the waiter brought her the scrambled eggs, the ring was there along with "will you marry me?" written in ketchup. Thankfully we did not have one of those engagements.

Candy? Too saccharine. 

No, it's pretty hard to surprise a woman who has designed her own ring and knows when it's ready. Austin very wisely asked me for a deadline, and I gave him until Valentines Day to pop the question. He agreed. I assumed he'd do it on the 14th since, well, it is The Most-Romantic Day. So on Thursday (2/10), when he asked me if he could make dinner for us, I was so completely shocked that he wanted to cook that I didn't even consider he might be planning to pop the question. That is until after he asked me about the contents of our larder (soy sauce? yes. mozzarella? no.), at which point he told me he was taking the dog for a walk, going grocery shopping, then giving me the ring. Oh.

The rest of the night pretty much went just like that. He poured us some nice beer (which, for Austin, is romantic) and then presented me with a small bag with the name of the jeweler on it. Years worth of romantic movie scenes ran through my head. Would he get down on one knee? Is this the moment that he finally asks me to be his wife? Would he tell me how much I mean to him? How he wants to spend every night falling asleep with me and waking up next to me? How he wants me to be the mother of his children and grow old with him?

Nope.

"Well, here it is. They asked me if I wanted it gift wrapped so I said OK." I took the bag from his hand and pulled out the tiny, nicely-wrapped box. I started pulling up the corners of the paper when Austin interjected. "You don't have to worry about ripping the paper or anything. It's not like we're going to reuse it." Sigh. My images of a romantic, heart-felt proposal were pretty much dashed at this point, so I looked at him and asked, "That's it?" "Oh yeah, uh, will you marry me?" I honestly don't remember whether I responded. Instead I opted to open the black-velvet box and look at the ring. It was beautiful.

Click to enlarge and gaze upon the shiny!

After I made him put it on my finger ("well I've never proposed to anyone before!"), we made the calls, wrote the emails, and made it facebook official. Even though the giving of the ring was less-than-ideal, I'm not too bothered. In the end the deed was done, and we are officially engaged. (To his credit, Austin insists that I'm the one that proposed waaaay back in October, and I can't say I entirely disagree.)

I imagine that years from now, grandchildren sitting on my lap, I will be asked, "Grandma, how did grandpa propose?" At that point, I will look lovingly on my ring and answer, "I don't remember."

Ring-a-Ding

Welcome to yet another wedding blog! Yay! I decided to create this after compiling images and ideas in secret for the last four months while my fiance, Austin, and I had a ring commissioned. So why not start at the beginning?

Austin and I had been together for the better part of 3 years when I started getting The Itch. As lovable as Austin is, he's not the sort of man who would think of marriage without some prompting, and like most men has little-to-no knowledge of engagement ring style. After a few sleepless nights imagining being presented with a 2nd-hand heart-shaped cubic zirconia on a silver band 10 years from now, I decided it would be best to take matters into my own hands.

Not my dream ring.

One night as we were lying in bed I decided to strike.

"Baby?"
"Yeah?"
"If you were to buy me something... uh... shiny, can I send you some images of shiny things I like?"
"....sure."

Yesssss! I knew I was in. At this point I had already begun perusing rings but wasn't in love with anything in particular. I just assumed I'd find something online that I liked and that would be the end of it. Once I started looking in earnest though, the idea of ordering a very expensive jewel through the internet seemed like a pretty sketchy idea, since the ring I liked the best so far I had found on ebay. Now we all know that ebay is great for things like $1 DVDs from China, but for fine jewelry, not so much. I then shifted my focus to looking for a jeweler here in Chicago. As before, I let Austin know of this change of plans after the lights were out. I took his snoring as a confirmation that I could continue with my in-person search.

My first step was yelp, a site dedicated to compiling customer reviews of various establishments across the city. If there was any way to avoid getting swindled, I figured checking with my fellow yelpers would be the best way. Since the idea of window shopping in jewelers row causes me to break out in a cold sweat, I figured searching for a smaller neighborhood jeweler would be the way to go. The first place I decided to check out was Lincoln Square's Stanley Brown Jewelist, which was a quick bike ride from where I work. They had a modest selection of rings in their store, but their inventory showed a wide range of styles and uniformly good quality. After talking with them for a while, I left with my mind filled with images of filigree rings and an appointment to return in a week to look at light-yellow diamonds. With luck I would have a ring in precious-few weeks!

Wrong.

Little did I know that I was beginning my ring quest at the height of ring-quest season: December. You see, there are these holidays called Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years, and people tend to get engaged during this time. A lot. Also, custom designing a ring takes a lot of effort. I probably looked at hundreds of rings online before stumbling on the designs of McTeigue & McClelland, which are incredibly inspiring. The ring that I liked in particular was called the Belle Epoque Ring, which combined so many aspects I like in a ring, including a bezel setting and filigreed detailing.

Getting warmer!

What I didn't care for was the sides and band detail, so I ended up designing those parts myself. The fine people of Stanley Brown were very patient with me as I experimented with designs, and were surprisingly invested in the whole situation. I was really impressed by my whole experience there, even if it did take way longer than I was expecting. But after 4 months of visits, emails, and phone calls, my ring was finally done. Now I just had to wait for Austin to pop the question! But that is for a later post.