The First Ring
Like many married women, I wear a wedding ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. The ring I wear is an oval cut sapphire set in white gold. There is an edge of white gold around the stone that makes it look like it's in the center of a flower. C designed it for me. Seven years ago, on Valentine's Day, he gave it to me. It is my "official" engagement and wedding ring. Most people who know me are familiar with it. What few people know is that it is actually my second engagement ring.
C and I had been talking about marriage for several months before he proposed. I knew he wanted to marry me and I knew I wanted to marry him. He was working as a musician and at a coffee shop when we were dating. He made just enough to pay his own bills and pay rent on a tiny apartment in a very old building. There was very little left over for other things, like an engagement ring for the woman he wanted to marry.
I didn't care about such things. Until I met C, I really had no thoughts of marriage. That meant that I had no picture of the perfect ring, proposal,wedding anything. One evening in June while having a cold drink at a coffee shop that overlooked the river,we talked about marriage again. We talked about proposals. I told him that there was no law saying a man had to give a woman a ring when he proposed marriage. While there were some women who may expect that, I was not one of them.
That prompted C into a five minute monologue that was his marriage proposal. I wish I could say that I burst into tears or did some other romantic type thing. Instead I listened and at the end I said, "Are you done yet?" It was not my finest moment.
Then I put both my hands on either side of his face and said "Yes." No long musings, no questions, just yes.
The next weekend I decided that I needed some kind of ring. I had many of my own that I wore on my left hand because I wanted to. I wanted something different. It needed to look a little like a traditional engagement ring. Since I wore rings on my left hand all the time I didn't want my friends to think it was just another ring that I bought.
C and I went to a jewelry store in town. I knew I didn't want a diamond, they all look like big pieces of glass to me. We looked over the rings and then found a case full of estate jewelry. Inside the case was the perfect ring. It was a solitaire garnet on a thin gold band. The stone was just the right size and the ring fit perfectly. We didn't need to look any further. It was the first thing that we picked out and bought together.
We had planned to either buy a gold band to weld to the ring we bought or remove the stone from the setting and set it in a new wedding ring for me. Unfortunately we were told that garnets do not hold up to everyday wear well. I was disappointed as the stone is so pretty. The garnet is the stone of January which is C's birth month and also the month we met.It meant that we would need to get a wedding ring with a different stone or just a gold band and no stones. That was a decision for later.
Now I had my lovely garnet ring. I wore it every day until Valentine's Day 2004 when I got the ring I have now. I still have the garnet, because the band is so thin I don't wear it often for fear of breaking it. I do wear it every Valentine's Day. It still looks as good as the day I got it.
C and I had been talking about marriage for several months before he proposed. I knew he wanted to marry me and I knew I wanted to marry him. He was working as a musician and at a coffee shop when we were dating. He made just enough to pay his own bills and pay rent on a tiny apartment in a very old building. There was very little left over for other things, like an engagement ring for the woman he wanted to marry.
I didn't care about such things. Until I met C, I really had no thoughts of marriage. That meant that I had no picture of the perfect ring, proposal,wedding anything. One evening in June while having a cold drink at a coffee shop that overlooked the river,we talked about marriage again. We talked about proposals. I told him that there was no law saying a man had to give a woman a ring when he proposed marriage. While there were some women who may expect that, I was not one of them.
That prompted C into a five minute monologue that was his marriage proposal. I wish I could say that I burst into tears or did some other romantic type thing. Instead I listened and at the end I said, "Are you done yet?" It was not my finest moment.
Then I put both my hands on either side of his face and said "Yes." No long musings, no questions, just yes.
The next weekend I decided that I needed some kind of ring. I had many of my own that I wore on my left hand because I wanted to. I wanted something different. It needed to look a little like a traditional engagement ring. Since I wore rings on my left hand all the time I didn't want my friends to think it was just another ring that I bought.
C and I went to a jewelry store in town. I knew I didn't want a diamond, they all look like big pieces of glass to me. We looked over the rings and then found a case full of estate jewelry. Inside the case was the perfect ring. It was a solitaire garnet on a thin gold band. The stone was just the right size and the ring fit perfectly. We didn't need to look any further. It was the first thing that we picked out and bought together.
We had planned to either buy a gold band to weld to the ring we bought or remove the stone from the setting and set it in a new wedding ring for me. Unfortunately we were told that garnets do not hold up to everyday wear well. I was disappointed as the stone is so pretty. The garnet is the stone of January which is C's birth month and also the month we met.It meant that we would need to get a wedding ring with a different stone or just a gold band and no stones. That was a decision for later.
Now I had my lovely garnet ring. I wore it every day until Valentine's Day 2004 when I got the ring I have now. I still have the garnet, because the band is so thin I don't wear it often for fear of breaking it. I do wear it every Valentine's Day. It still looks as good as the day I got it.
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