Our story: engagement ring shopping

After a few months together, the weekend before Mac deployed was suddenly upon us. We spent weeks shopping for extra gear, packing up his stuff, and dreading the first weekend of December. His parents decided to come down one last time before he left.

Mac told me he wanted to buy my Christmas present before he left. We headed over to the mall before his parents arrived and walked through the jewelry stores. Since my meltdown, I hadn’t looked at engagement rings. I really didn’t have a style in mind but loved the idea of sapphire, my birthstone, in a non-traditional setting like surrounded by chocolate diamonds. Apparently, this ring isn’t very common because I can’t even find a picture to use as an example.

The last store to visit was Helzberg Diamonds. At Mac’s encouragement, I tried on a gorgeous aquamarine (Mac’s birthstone) set in a champagne diamond halo similar to this style. Sadly, the aquamarine lost most of its color when outside of the jewelry case.

Onto the traditional rings. I had noticed a few white diamond halo rings when we first walked in the store in the ever subtle “engagement case.” Mac nudged me over these to try out the ones I had pointed out. The saleslady pulled a few of my picks out, and I slipped the first one on. Y’all, I got cottonmouth, and my hands started shaking. I was trying on engagement rings for real. Like we would be getting engaged with the ring I picked out. Yikes. No pressure.

Most of the rings I tried on were basically the same halo setting. Just different sizes and quality of stones. The saleslady asked if I liked antique detailing and pulled out a ring. I slid it on my finger and was sold. The detailing was exquisite. The diamonds sparkled just so. It spoke to me and said, “Buy me.” It even came with a matching wedding band. Two rings for one cost with an additional military discount? Sold.