Who knew?

My man and I have been dating for nearly 3 years now. Some people may say "that's about average" but, when you're in your mid-30s you just want to get on with the show. So I waited, then we had a few "talks", plus lots of hints and "when are you getting married?" from friends and family. Finally, the week before V-day he says "I think you need to pick out your own ring". Of course I ran right out and began the painstaking process of looking for the perfect ring.

When I finally chose the ring and we went to order it, he thought the center stone was "too small". Well, not a bad problem to have, except that he was engaged before (some 5+ years ago) and got a much larger (over 2c TW!), platinum ring + band for the same amount as the 1c TW ring I had chosen. Not surprisingly, he was worried we weren't getting a good deal so we did a bit more research and looked at rings together. I just knew that we would never find a ring the same size and couldn't figure out how he even got such a deal 5 years ago (not to mention that a 2c ring looks ridiculous on my small hands).

THEN...a co-worker gave him an article around the "conflict" or "blood" diamonds which was published in 2002. Turns out that in 1999, the truth of the diamond industry was brought to the surface (just before Christmas...ha!) and the market was subsequently flooded with diamonds as the diamond moguls started to rid themselves of their "stashes" before people began boycotting diamonds. Well, the demand for diamonds DIDN'T decrease, but diamond prices DID drop significantly for a couple years due to the excess supply. Wouldn't you know it...that's exactly when he bought the ex-fiance's ring! Add that to the tripling of the price of gold over the past 5 or so years and there explains how you can get over a 2c TW, platinum ring for an absurdly low price.

Needless to say, we've both decided that the ring for me is the one that I decided on originally...which is the one I fell in love with in the first place! Go figure.

So, now on to the next challenge...shopping for a venue and a date. Stay tuned.