Big Papa Guest Blog: Buying the Ring

BP has the blogging bug...

Proposing to Jewels was pretty much a formality from my point of view. When she decided to join me in Toronto the deal was done. The question became, when was the wedding, not are we going to get married. To that end, we had looked at engagement rings, and I had a good idea of what to get. I thought that left me well prepared to go out and pick one up. How wrong I was.

I found buying a wedding ring extremely difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly, I hate shopping, for anything. Secondly, I knew next to nothing about jewellery. To compound the problem, there was no way to educate yourself.

For example, if I were to buy a car, I could talk to the guys at work about what they drive, read the paper, the internet and in the end probably get something that is right for us. Talk to a dozen firefighters about what kind of wedding ring to get, or where to get it? They’d run you out of the hall!

As well, how do you know one jeweller’s diamond is better then the others? Even looking at diamonds through a microscope, I could not often tell the difference from one to another, then what size do you get, and with what ring? I started to get stressed.

In addition, the guidelines they would give you were 2-3 months after tax salary (I didn’t spend that much). To be dropping that kind of money on anything would stress me out, to drop it on something I did not really understand was terrifying.

The last wrinkle was the sales people; it was just like buying a used car. They would give the “A diamond is forever” line, as well as, “its important to show how much you love her” with a high quality diamond, which by the way starts at $10 000. Oh and here was the real killer, they wanted 8-10 weeks to manufacture the thing, which blew my proposal plans right out of the water.

Then there is the whole values clash I had. The only time I paid any attention to rings was when I was buying one. You could walk into my house with a boulder on your hand, and I would not notice. I’d rather use the money on the down payment for a house, or a trip, but this purchase was not about my values.

I want Julie to be happy, I am fully aware the size and cost of a ring has little to do with how much you love someone. However, I don’t want her to go out with her friends and have some crappy little ring, she’s embarrassed to wear. As well, we’re not moving to Rosedale anytime soon, but we’re not poor either. We can afford something decent. But what is decent?

This is a decision only I can make. I can’t say “hey Julie, we’ve got the wedding, honeymoon, and I’d like to buy a house soon. As well, the car has three tires in the grave and you want to finish school. How much do you want me to drop on the diamond?”

Big Papa – last of the romantics

In the end, I found a nice little jewellery shop, run by a mother and daughter, who were not too pushy, and not far from our apartment. They had my ring ready in about 10 days. The number of carats on Julie’s diamond, I can’t remember, but the ring itself is white gold. The sad part for me was that it was not a “magical experience” giving Jewels the ring; it was a fucking relief I finally purchased the thing.

BP