Mademoiselle, November 2001
Getting the Ring You Want
You’re fated to have him but not an ugly ring—even if you have to get your own on eBay.
Picture, if you will, a ballroom dance floor in San Francisco at midnight, New Year’s Eve. Balloons are dropping from the ceiling, the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, and people are kissing all around. My boyfriend kneels in front of me, pops the big questions, and slips the ugliest ring I’ve ever seen on my finger.
It wasn’t even a diamond or a cubic zirconium, but a big, cheesy, puce stone. It was a mood ring in a color hat could only indicate the worst PMS day imaginable. However, unlike Sex and the City’s Carrie, who considered refusing Aidan’s impending proposal after se saw the tacky ring he bought, I was elated by my monstrosity.
I understood that this gaudy hunk of junk was merely a placeholder. It simply meant that my future husband knew me well enough to know he wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t pick out a real engagement ring without me.
Of course, there are those brides-to-be, like my friend Diane, who savor the traditional surprise-attack approach. Diane’s fiancé painstakingly researched every facet of diamond purchasing on the Internet and combed finer jewelry stores with a female co-worker’s assistance until he found a gorgeous platinum solitaire with a one-carat oval diamond. He then presented it to her at the top of the Empire State Building; she claims it’s exactly what she would have chosen herself. But for those of us who don’t live in a Nora Ephron movie, it doesn’t hurt to play it safe.
My friend Carole didn’t take any chances. She wanted to be surprised with a storybook proposal, not by the engagement ring. "I found a Tiffany ad in a magazine with the diamond solitaire I wanted, cut out the picture and put it on my boyfriend’s pillow," she says. He acknowledged the gentle push but told her the ring was out of his price range. Little did she know he had already bought it. A few months later, voila! Her fiancé proposed with her dream ring in the middle of a party with friends.
Another friend, Laura, dismissed the notion of a sentimental engagement altogether and opted for a clinical approach. She found her ring (a Victorian rose-gold ring with a small sapphire) on eBay, bought it and had her fiancé write a check. Not exactly a De Beers commercial scenario, but definitely efficient.
As for me, well, the mood ring was charming, but a few weeks later I saw my ring in a jewelry store: a 1.5-carat diamond solitaire stunner set in platinum with etched gold 18-karat flowers. The ring and its matching wedding band were tailor-made for my finger, but not for my writer husband’s bank account. So we went halfsies—he bought the setting sans stone, and I paid for a modest one-carat diamond replacement with a settlement I received from a boating accident (and they say romance is dead.) Although I don’t wear the placeholder ring, I have not forgotten about it. It lives on in my heart and in my junk jewelry drawer.—Julie Polito
