Shy about the Shiny.

Is anyone else REALLY shy about her engagement ring? I hide it all the time, tucking my hand into my sleeve, making a point to try and keep it out of sight. It makes me nervous, I think I'm paranoid - I feel like people are always looking at it, sizing me up, sizing Mr. Gummi Bear up. It might be that I've had girls point at it to pressure their boyfriends... and have actually been riding in a car with a girl berated her boyfriend about the difference in size. Mr. Gummi Bear and I sat nervously in the backseat for that drive. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.

So let this be known, I'm only posting about my ring because I love you all! If asked about it in person, I'd just start sweating and my eyes would slowly cross.


My original ring was cute, Mr. Gummi Bear had it custom made for me.... but in reality, it wasn't really made to have a wedding band next to it. We also felt the jeweler we worked with wasn't really willing to work with us, just did what he wanted, and it came out so heavy and unfeminine. In the end, we decided that the wedding band remaining a constant in my life is far more important that preserving the current setting of my engagement ring. The only requirements for this new ring was that we incorporated all the current stones and that another ring would be able to sit flush against it.

I wanted something completely different, something to fit my lifestyle. We bought a 1920's home with all the period details intact, then filled it with retro style and mid-century modern furniture. I wanted something that would refect my vintage obsession...

So we looked around, read some reviews, and settled down on a custom jeweler in San Francisco. (We went to one in Oakland, but the woman was SO snooty, we left disgusted) It was a nice meeting, I really liked the guy this time. We talked a lot about details, because... I'm obsessed with details. on the way home, in fact, I realized I forgot something, so when we got home I made a detailed diagram of angles on graph paper of what I forgot to tell him, scanned it, and had Mr. Gummi Bear email it to him with a few last questions. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm nuts.

He does everything by hand, no wax molds, no nothing, just pure artistry... which means that my delicate milgrain will only cover .3mm of my diamond edge in the bezel set. To see if I could put a size 4 ring on, he sprayed my hand with windex... it worked. Immediately after said if I needed to get it on or off without windex, spit is slick enough. And you know how much we love it when vendors/artisans/professionals tell us crude or weird things!!



so. I've avoided it long enough. Here are the photos:

my jeweler took these photos for his portfolio, they look totally fake, but this is my actual ring:
-top view-
-angle view-



Satisfied?! I'm going to go crawl into my hole and pretend this never happened. I'll be red faced for days.

I'll be happy to post about Mr. Gummi Bears engagement and wedding rings when it arrives.. Wednesday! yay!