Advice in case you ever need to buy an engagement ring!

My OH and I got engaged in December last year. We went out together to chose a ring. We didn't have much spare cash but knew it had to be something I really liked seeing as I had to wear it for many years. It took a while but we found one I loved at a price we could afford. Here is it ..... and yes, the stones are fake!

Now, I'm the sort of person who never takes her jewelry off. I buy gold or silver (am allergic to anything else) and then wear it until I lose it or I break up with the man its related to! Which leads me to my top piece of advice about choosing an engagement ring ....... Think carefully about what you are going to put that ring through! If you are sensible and take your rings off if you are washing up, doing DIY, moving house etc then its not such an issue for you to get something delicate. However if you are like me and it doesn't occur to you to take it off then you need to buy something a little more sturdy. 

This ring last me 4 months.

It may have lasted slightly longer if 1. I hadn't move house 2. my OH hadn't managed to squash my left hand between the a door and a fridge and 3. I hadn't then let my OH and his granddad try to 'mend' the ring.

After the hand / door / fridge incident (and after the swelling had gone down) I removed the ring to find it looking like this...... 

We couldn't get it straight (or round as the case maybe) with any tools we had at home so my OH asked his granddad if he had any tools which would do it. And off they went to the workshop. After about 30 minutes my OH comes back in looking sheepish. He said the good news was that it was now slightly rounder. But the bad news was this ......

Most of the stones around the edges were gone. SIGH.

I should have taken it back to the shop when it first got bent. Its now just sat in a drawer as a reminder never to let OH and his 97 year old granddad touch my ring again!! 

So a new engagement ring was required. As we had started planning the wedding we thought we would get an engagement ring to match our 'theme'. We are getting married outside in woodland and, at that time, planned to have bark effect wedding rings as a memento of this. So I started to look for an engagement ring with a woodland feel. I found and bought this ...... 

Its not easy to capture on camera but the base is a silver cast of a leaf. In person you can see all its little veins. I thought this purchase through a little more and had more of a budget. Its silver and thicker so is stronger than the previous one. And I am happy to report it has lasted 7 months with no damage.  I still wear it no matter what I am doing .... in fact because of my weight gain, it doesn't come off anyway! 

But thats not the end of my saga, or my advice.

I bought the ring on Etsy. It was listed as an engagement or promise ring. I presumed that meant she made a wedding ring to match it. NEVER PRESUME!! I emailed her last month to ask which of her rings is the wedding ring to go with this one. She kindly took some pics of my ring alongside wedding style bands that she made. It looked horrendous with every one. She could offer me no other options ..... it seems she has never been asked for a wedding ring to go with it.

I spent a while searching Etsy to find rings I thought would match. Due to the thickness of the engagement ring I thought I would need something thin so not to overwhelm my little fingers. Then my sensible head kicks in and says 'why not go and try some rings on in town so you know what looks ok with it'. Great idea! Well, maybe a great idea if I wasn't agoraphobic!!  I did manage to pop in to one shop with the OH and try a few on. NOTHING matches it. I tried all different thicknesses, I tried little patterned ones, I tried everything they had really. It is not a ring that can be worn with another ring. SHIT.

So next bit of advice. Make sure it will look ok next to a wedding ring!

I think I am going to get a wedding ring which is a little elaborate so will look ok on its own. I will then wear my engagement ring on my right hand. That said, I would like my wedding ring to be yellow gold and I would feel uneasy with then having a silver ring on my right hand, so maybe a third engagement ring is in order!!

Either way I am spending HOURS on Etsy each night. Soooooooooo many lovely rings, so few fingers. Oh and my OH has decided he is having a Damascus ring instead of bark effect. It makes sense as its stronger and it looks a lot nicer. However that means I no longer have to worry about finding matching rings so am free to choose what I like ........ this may take some time.

TTFN

K x