Wedding rings! Yes, wedding rings. When Jay & I went to look at wedding rings a month ago to get an idea of prices, I discovered that my engagement ring did not have a matching band with it! The gentleman at our jewelry store simultaneously discouraged and panicked me when he kept insisting that there was no match for my ring and the only solution he could offer was either to go with a jacket setting that would house the ring instead of a band or else to “Go to Jolly’s [a North Raleigh Jewelry store] and get something custom made.”
After two trips to Jolly’s, I discovered that it was going to be quite pricey for me to get a custom band made to match my ring. I went back to our jewelry store and sought out a female employee. I showed her my ring and explained the situation. “What do women do who bought this engagement ring and don’t want the jacket?” I asked her. “I just love the idea of a traditional wedding band.”
She gave me some options but said that most people got the jacket setting, although this ring never really had a specific match. The ring was also happened to be discontinued so any match for it would have also been discontinued. At this point, I was [am] determined to find a matching wedding band! I LOVE my engagement ring & I know there’s a matching band option for it somewhere out there.
I went to a showcase and found a 90% perfect match (the band was slightly wider than my ring’s band) but they wouldn’t break up the set, even though we were willing to pay. I looked through all of my options at our jeweler, including plain white gold bands. I even investigated having a ring specially contoured out to fit around my ring, something not normally done by our jeweler. There were a lot of good choices but none were great. I couldn’t decide what to do. Sooo last weekend, I decided to pay a visit to another branch about 25 minutes away. I found two options – one is a very close match shapewise, but the stones on the band aren’t a perfect match. The second one isn’t totally perfect shapewise but the stones match exactly. It’s difficult for me to really get a good feel for what will look better because the samples were a size 8. I decided to order them both in a Size 5 (I wear a 4.5-4.75 ring size) and then decide when they came in. I had to put 10% down on each but I’m optimistic that 4-8 weeks from now, I’ll have a ring or a better idea of what to zero in on 🙂 That’s why you start these things early!!!
Oh P.S., I’ve been updating our wedding website and am going to try to do so more frequently now. In an attempt to not suck, I hooked up the JayandColleen@gmail.com email to my Blackberry so I won’t have a choice but to check it.
