Title courtesy of this video.
lol
Today, I want to talk about rings. Wedding rings to be specific. Because yesterday, Grant and I put down the deposit for our wedding rings - yay! We've purchased two gorgeous rings from Diamonds International in Queen Street (I love plugging stores/companies I love. Does that make me a bit whore-ish?) and I'm super-duper excited (except for one tiny thing... which I'll get to at the end*).
Thankfully, this was only our second trip out on a ring hunt, so we're doing pretty well with getting things done near the first time.
Diamonds International is where Grant got my engagement ring from. In a super romantic gesture, he hunted all around the city, researching diamonds and settings and picked one that ticked all the boxes: big shiny diamond, good quality diamond, value for money, very pretty looking. He got fantastic service from them when he went by himself, so of course they were the first (and only) place we went to.
Unfortunately, the first time we went back to look at rings was a big of a disaster. I made the mistake of going with Grant during his lunch-break, because his work is across the road. This meant that when the lady who served us took an extreme amount of time to look for rings and a price, we just got more and more stressed. It didn't help that, although I said blatantly we wanted to look for a ring for Grant (because of his lunchbreak) she went and got rings for me. Then she told me my suggestions were wrong, but then remarked snarkily "well, my opinion doesn't matter of course" while insisting on a particular ring style that her daughter (recently engaged) liked. She also refused to write a quote or the ring details when she realised we weren't going to buy that day. Blah blah snooty cow blah. We got over it and just decided to go back and make sure we saw somebody else.
Therefore, when we went back yesterday, we made sure we didn't make eye contact with snooty lady, and instead kept an eye out for either Ron (who'd sold Grant my engagement ring) or another guy I'd spoken to a few times when I'd gone in to get my ring cleaned, turned out to be Chris. And Chris was lovely.
There's one thing about this whole experience that I personally don't understand. Why would nobody believe that I don't want a big flashy shiny ring? Hell, for years I had always imagined getting a three-toned russian wedding ring (examples one and two), and just not wear my engagement ring. When I told Grant that he was a bit shocked. I tried to explain that I'm clumsy, with bad spatial awareness and so I regularly drop things, lose things or just plain bang my arm/hand/leg/now ring into walls/chairs/desks/tables... I didn't want the responsibility of walking around with $xxxx worth of bling just waiting for a sudden unexpected death. I was quite happy with the idea of something simple and wearing my engagement ring as a dress ring or similar on special occasions.
But ooohhhhhh noooooo!! Kahiwa, you must wear your bling at all times! Well, excepting in the shower, in bed, at the gym, cleaning with harsh chemicals, cooking with mushy things that might get embedded, applying lotions... So, I basically wear my ring possibly 40% of the day, thereby increasing the risk of something happening to it by 120%! Can't I just get something simple and save my ring? No Kahiwa, they tell me, your wedding ring must be shiny enough to enhance the already obscene shininess of your engagement ring. I feel like they're saying the ring is a metaphor for how much I'm loved "the bigger the ring, the better your marriage will be because you've obviously 'trained' your hubby-to-be to spend lots of money on you"... So when I had narrowed it down to 2 rings, from just one box, and Grant and Chris asked me "don't you want to see any others to compare it against?" I said "no, this one is lovely; it'll do. It's just a ring" you can imagine the looks I got.
*It's just a ring people. Yes, it's pretty, and shiny, and expensive, and imbued with romantic meaning, but it's just a ring. I'm not any more engaged or married because I wear jewellery on a specific finger. I know I'm engaged right now, it seems as though it's a sign for everyone else to know I'm engaged or married...
I don't want a marriage where the happiness/love factor is measured by things. Don't get me wrong, I want stuff, I love stuff, I love buying and receiving stuff. But I like the meaning behind that stuff way more. And that's why, although our rings are gorgeous (I even practised a few poses for the inevitable typical blog ring shot), the main reason I'm excited is because this is another sign it's actually happening. In less than 6 months we're going to be giving each other outward symbols of an internal vow. But they're just symbols, ok?
*love love love love love*
Kiwa.
Kiwa.
