Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 3

Alright.... alright.... I will finish the story....

Sorry, a lot of drama = a lot of story to tell!

haha!

Well... now that we had the money - lost the money - resaved the money - we had to finally settle on a ring!


By this point we were fast approaching our yearly Thanksgiving trip to California to spend time with His family...

I typically take off the first half of that week since those are the days that He already has off anyways.... so when we were out there we had plenty of time to kill....


Since He had been pestering me for a new gun (yes, we are gun people) - he suggested that we might be able to benefit from the hard times that had hit the area by checking out their local pawn shops.


Enter : Olde West Gun & Loan

Image via Google Maps - Redding, CA

This place was a mega-jackpot of guns and ammo.... really, it was an impressive selection.... but personally we found their gun prices to be on the high side so we left with some ammo for a rare gun my Grandfather has... but no guns....

What we did find were FOUR.... count 'em FOUR Marquise Solitaire rings... FOUR!!!


Heaven!

Now, I know there is a lot of stigma attached to pawn shop rings.... but really, if you know what you want, why should it matter where you get it? Given the extensive searching we had been doing, we knew exactly what we had found - the perfect ring at a minimum of 50% off retail.... [of course we had the ring professionally checked out!]

Personal Photo

Look at that baby shine!

Finally we were engaged!!!

Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 2

So if you are following along with the story of my Bling you now know about the major road bump we hit that set us back a month or two...

After depleting our *Ring Fund* to pay off old debts I was pretty devastated to be completely up front with you.... but really, we did the responsible thing... as a team!

He is not the only one joining this relationship with a past of financial difficulty.... while I love my job, the degree I needed to pursue it was rather spendy... I mean, I got a good deal - say 80% off.... but I still owe FOUR times our initial wedding budget in student loans... so I'd say we are pretty much financially equal in the debts we bring together...

But - this post is about my bling... not our wallets... so let's continue with the story shall we....

While we started saving again, we also continued to look around at our local jewelry stores...

We stopped in Kays and Zales - neither had much of a selection of Marquise stones.... like I mentioned in the last post, what I was looking for is rare - unpopular - not a big seller - etc. So I understand that some stores cannot afford to carry stock that will not move. Both the Kays and Zales stores we visited had very friendly sales people... just nothing to offer *us*


One day while grocery shopping, we stopped into the in-store jewelry store. Not mentioning names here, since we have a bad experience to share, but this jewelry store (supported by their parent company grocery store) is suppose to be one of the larger jewelers in the country. While they did have a stone in the store that was close to what we were looking for it was slightly wider than I wanted. With Marquise stones the length to width ratio helps determine how aesthetically pleasing the stone is, and my preference was to get a ratio of more than 2:1


Well, darn! No Luck?

Actually, this store was planning on hosting a Diamond Event where they bring in Millions of dollars worth of stones and setting and you can make exactly what you want!!


How exciting!

We left our details, budget, preferences and such with the store - made an appointment for the event (three weeks later) and started saving like CRAZY!!

On the day of our appointment I woke Him up early (he works nights and doesn't usually wake up until 4pm - we were scheduled for 3pm) and we eagerly went off to the market!!

Unfortunately, when we got their we discovered that they had made NO attempt to bring ANY stones matching the information we had left - and no we did not ask for like a 3 carat stone for less than $1,000 or something equally ridiculous.... we knew the price we would have to pay for what we wanted and had left reasonable requests the last time we were in. Not only did this store not call us to let us know they we unable to find what we wanted - they had the audacity to suggest we buy the same stone we rejected THREE.WEEKS.AGO!!!!

*Que tears*

Picture from Newborn Baby Ideas

Well....

Fine....

Whatever....

We left of course... upset... I was sad... But hey, if nothing else we had been motivated to save back up again... that counts for something right?


And really... you will never guess where we found my ring...


O.M.G. Did anyone else has *THIS* much trouble in the ring department???

Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 1

Image From Poll Boutique

So.... Boy Meets Girl.... yadda yadda yadda....


You get it, we're in love.... past the point of just saying "I love you" and doing nice things for each other... to be honest we were both adults and realized at about the same time that things were moving towards a more permanent arrangement and that we were both really comfortable with that.



We began talking about getting married - running through deal breaker questions like:


-Do we want kids?

-Where do we want to live / Where do we NOT want to live?

-How do we handle money together?

etc.



It began looking like it was time to start choosing ring styles!!!

I may or may not have some experience in the ring department - actually both of us have been engaged before and the last time for me I ended up with a ring that was not something I wanted to be wearing on a daily basis.

Don't Judge!

I'm not trying to be mean about the previous ring - just certain styles do not fit some people.


This time I wanted to help make sure this was a ring I could wear every day for the rest of my life! So here is what I knew I wanted:

-White gold
-Thin Band
-Solitaire
-Marquise or Emerald
-The ring had to be paid in full within 24 hours of acquisition

We started saving up for this purchase and stopping into jewelery stores when we were out shopping to get a better feel for the size and shapes of the different stones that were available. I decided fairly early on that I was in love with the Marquise style stone and unfortunately it is a fairly unpopular choice right now [read: no one is carrying them!!]


Before we really even got started we hit a huge wall.... An old medical bill of His from 2004-2006 resurfaced in the form of a judgement against him. Some bad-debt-collecting lawyer had filed to collect on this old bill and it basically worked out to Him owing $3,000 RIGHT.NOW.OR.ELSE!

For me, trying to move towards a more unified front meant that HE did not owe anything.... WE were on the hook for this $$$. Being fairly savvy in the ways of google I found that these debts can be settled for less, and often if paid immediately in cash could be legally taken care of. I called the lawyer's office and settled the $3,000 debt for $2,000 [paid immediately] in exchange for a letter stating the debt had been settled and they would surrender and legal rights to continue to come after us.


YAY- Done! - What a deal right?


Well, guess where that $2,000 had to come from?