How To Buy An Engagement Ring

This post is written by Pete. For all his posts, check out this link.

Wondering how to buy an engagement ring? Or just curious about what your man went through? Pete is writing a series for us on How To Buy An Engagement Ring. Below is part one of the series. You can check our Part 2 (the four C's) here.

Not gonna lie, but part of the reason why I dragged my feet about popping the big question to Lisa is because I knew I had to take on the daunting task of finding an engagement ring. At one point I even said, "Can't I just tie a twist tie around your finger and call it a day?" Needless to say that idea went over like a fart in church. At that point I realized that I needed to crap or get off the pot or "quit being a lazy bum and get a ring."

"Crap," I thought. "Where the hell do I even start? I know about as much about diamonds as a 4 year old does about metaphysics."

Anybody that knows me will tell you how I believe engagement rings are a pointless rite of passage, a tradition probably invented by a diamond company back in the day. You know, kind of like how Valentine's Day is a fake holiday invented by carstores? Same concept here, but that's just my opinion -- and most of the time my opinions earn me a fresh slap in the teeth.

Here is a FACT: Regardless of what my opinion is about the engagement ring tradition, I knew I would either get Lisa the ring of her dreams or my sweet Jap-lock (as I call her because she's Japanese and Polish) Princess would run out of patience and find another man to live happily ever after with. And I wasn't about to let the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life get away! Personally, I didn't care what the tradition was, or how ridiculous I thought it was – I would have done anything to earn the honor of having Lisa as my wife ... dang man, still feels surreal to say "wife" ... wow ... feels so good ... can't believe I have a wife ... takes a while to get used to I guess? I don't care if the tradition was that men had to wear neon string bikinis and chase giant wheels of cheese down a hill to gain a woman's affection. You can bet your ass I'd be at the bikini shop looking for the perfect bikini that emphasized my fantastic thighs.

With that being said, here's the process I went through to find my delicious wife a ring. The first step was asking Lisa what kind of design she liked. Man there's tons of 'em! Lisa was a big fan of the "bypass cut," which means that the sides of the ring traverse instead of making a straight line. She also liked if you look at the ring head-on you can see thru it, which is a bezel setting. (Lisa's note: You can check out this link to see images and definitions of settings, shanks, and more. It's a huge help.)

She decided on a design she had come across from a jeweler in Pennsylvania. Bypass rings are cool too because the wedding band snaps snugly against the engagement ring on the "big day." Oooh boy that's so nice, kinda like two souls snapping together to be one. Oooh man that's good! Feel free to use that one fellas. It's on the house. You're welcome.

Now that I had the ring design, all I had to do was have it made. Easy right? Oh hell no. Turns out the specific bypass design Lisa wanted was copyrighted by the jeweler in Pennsylvania and to have it replicated would have cost an insane amount of money. But I had no fear! The bypass design is popular, and the catalogs in the jewelry store I used had a whole bunch of bypass designs, in a wide range of prices -- from very affordable to "you're an idiot who loves to waste money" expensive. Once I picked a design I knew Lisa would like, it was time to move on to the diamond. That part was actually cool. As I learned about what all the codes mean, I realized that I'd be able to get a really nice diamond that was affordable -- there's a lot of wiggle room there because, when buying a diamond you want to think about the "4 C's": carat, cut, color, and clarity. But that's for part two of the series.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What style of engagement ring are you looking at?