SPT - Show and Tell

Assignment for May 1, 2007:
Show & tell one of your most treasured items. The catch is (YES, there is a catch)... it must be smaller than a deck of cards!

This one was hard for me because I feel like there are alot of things about me that I would like to show and tell. But considering that I had this photo, no time to brainstorm, and that this is indeed one of my most valued possessions, that this would be the time that I tell you all about my diamond ring.

Rich and I met on July 4, 2004. By November, we were both talking about marriage and it didn't seem to freak either one of us out, which was a good thing. We were both in our thirties, neither had ever been married, so we kind of knew that we had something special. Face it, at our age, if we knew it wasn't going to work out, we would have bailed long before then.

We had the typical talks about weddings - what kind, where would it be, how many people. It honestly took us a while to come to an agreement on those points. His initial plan was - traditional church wedding, in Nashville, with lots of friends and family. My initial plan was - elopement, somewhere tropical, just the two of us. We were very far apart. But, we talked through it and in the end, we settled on: Beach Wedding in Destin, Florida with immediate family and few of our closest friends.

Once we had an agreement on that, it was time to think about The Ring. I have very particular taste when it comes to jewelry and it made me very nervous that Rich really didn't want my input. He was taking his sister along to the jeweler and honestly didn't want me to even show him styles I liked. This was a problem, so I told him "Your sister isn't going to wear this for the rest of her life, but I am, so you should probably at least let me give you some ideas." He eventually agreed and I sent him some pictures of things I liked... mostly princess, Aascher and emerald cut diamonds... nothing outrageous.

The evening of April 7, 2005 I arrived at Rich's house and sitting on the ottoman was a small box from the jeweler. He asked me to marry him, which of course I said yes. Then I opened the box to find this...

I never expected to see what I did. Inside was this beautiful ring that had been designed just for me. You see, the real reason he was meeting his sister at the jeweler was not so he could get her opinion. It was so she could bring him two diamonds. My ring has three stones. One was from his mother's engagement ring and the other, from his grandmother's engagement ring. The third is a vintage stone to match the others that the jeweler searched for just for me.

I love this ring, but more than that, I love how much thought Rich put into having it made just for me. Even though it isn't what I thought I wanted, I couldn't imagine a more perfect ring to wear for the rest of my life.