engagement ring

fyi: I just had a mini panic attack cause I couldn't find this blog. Don't worry I posted in Jan 09 cause I can't remember what year we are in.

My engagement ring the day he put it on my finger!

My dad is the oldest of 12 siblings. I was able to see almost all of them the month of my wedding. I would say for most families this large and with so many complicated parts, this is amazing. I love my uncles and aunts a lot. Like in any family people sometimes get upset for different reasons. I hope that anyone in my family that does read this does not embrace the temper side. I discussed whether or not I should include this information in a post with my dad. I told him I usually try to avoid anything I think might cause drama. But it seemed important that I share this story. It is a story I tell to anyone that admires my ring so I shouldn't be afraid what my family's reaction might be. Phew.... here goes the ring post.

I don't know all the details, but I am pretty sure when my great grandmother passed away, my dad flew to the East Coast to help my grandma with the funeral. Grandma and my Dad went through great-grandma's apartment to start clearing out all her stuff and my Grandma asked my Dad if he thought her jewelry was real or not. They both thought it was costume jewelry and Grandma said "Meagan and her friends can use it to dress up." I think my mom thought they should have some of her jewelry looked at just in case any of it was real. They found out there was a ring that had a real diamond in it and thought it would be special if, I was ever able to find a guy that wanted to marry me (that was always their joke), he could use the diamond in an engagement or wedding ring. As my memory serves me (you all know its not good), they told me about this diamond before Hubby and I started dating. I thought it was amazing but like I have said before never really thought about getting married until I met Hubby.

After about a year of dating I knew Hubby was the one for me. I asked my parents to email me pictures of my great grandmother's ring. I loved the ring but the setting seemed to have different types of metals and wasn't very shiny. When I was looking through some magazines one day I found an add for some Tacori engagement rings that looked similar to my great grandmother's ring. I actually tore out two ads and gave them to my parents to put with the ring in case Hubby asked for my hand in marriage and they gave him the diamond. The funny thing was when my parents found the clippings around Christmas time this year. One of them is almost exactly my engagement ring and wedding band and the date on it is 2006. Hubby and I started ring shopping in Oct. 2008. Scary.

After living together for six months and dating for 4 years or so, I had a dtr (define the relationship) talk with Hubby. He said he didn't want to get married until he was 26 years old. Still don't know where he got that idea. So I said how about getting married in 2009? He turned 26 Dec. 2008 and January '09 was our 5 year anniversary. He agreed. Fast forward to summer/fall '08 I was working at Nordstrom and if a guy wants to buy a diamond to propose to you they can use your discount. So we started ring shopping.

I ended up not liking any of the rings at Nordstrom and quit working there. So I told Hubby we couldn't get any rings that I would have gotten a discount on. I was back to loving the Tacoris. We are both fuzzy as to why we were in a Devon's on Nov. 20th 2008. We had traveled north for Thanksgiving. We knew we were going ring shopping. Hubby hadn't asked my dad for my hand in marraige yet. I asked him if he needed me to get the ring to take shopping with us. I guess he had asked my dad for my hand in marraige and my dad had given him the ring. I wanted my dad to tell the story at our wedding but he was too wound up. Still haven't heard the story.

Devons had a Tacori that I loved, that my great grandmother's diamond would fit perfectly into. Hubby tried to bargain with them and told me to start looking at the non designer rings. Tacori is really strict about jewelers keeping their prices. If they find out prices are dropped they will pull the whole line from the store. Hubby got the store to take the tax off and BOUGHT MY DREAM RING!!!

My great grandmother's diamond was my something old at my wedding. Most people I tell the story too think it is really special. I wanted to make a shadow box with the setting my great grandmother's ring was in and her picture. I haven't gotten around to it. Right now her picture is displayed in my Tacori ring box were I put my rings whenever they aren't on my finger. When my dad and I were talking about this post he said, "Grandma Markey would be thrilled to know you love her diamond and that her memory lives on." I replied, "She knows."

After Hubby bought my engagement ring he told me the wedding band was going to have to be a lot less money. The story of the wedding band is next on the schedule.