Hello, Mike Stevens here.
During my 30 years as a jeweler, I have worked behind the scenes as well as up front and in the faces of the people. I have loved all of it. I have heard a lot of different stories over the years; stories of guys who proposed right in the jewelry store, some even on bended knee. And the stories of girls who actually bought their own engagement rings. Crazy, isn’t it? Well, I’d like to share a special story about two best friends, and of how one leaned on the other for so called ‘expert’ advice on how to buy an engagement ring. Sam telephones his buddy Chris to get the advice. It’s truly an interesting story, and you’ll never in a million years guess how the story ends!
“Hey Chris, it’s Sam. How ya doin’ buddy?”
“I’m good, Sam. What’s up?”
“Well, I’ve decided to ask Katie to marry me, and man, I don’t have a freakin’ clue about buying an engagement ring. I’ve been thinking about it for days, but I really don’t know anything about wedding rings. I thought that, maybe, since you recently proposed to Amber, that maybe you could give me some tips. Man, can you give me some pointers?”
“Sam, after all the ring shopping I did, I almost feel like an expert on engagement rings.”
“Was it hard, I mean where did you go? Were you nervous?”
“Well, at the beginning I felt a little intimidated. I wasn’t sure where to go and I had no clue as to what kind of ring Amber would want. When I first decided to propose, I went to the mall and just browsed the diamond ring case. Man, the salespeople were on me like flies. I had no idea what was going on, so I hung around for a few minutes and I asked some questions. One of the sales ladies suggested I bring Amber in to look around She told me she would get Amber over to the diamond case to pick out her ‘dream’ ring. This lady gave me a card with her name on it. I was basically instructed to come with Amber and pretend I didn’t know the sales lady. I figured, great! Someone to help me through one of the biggest days of my life. How cool is that!?”
“Pretty cool! So you got Amber to the store OK? Did she suspect anything?”
“Nope, not at all. When we got to the jewelry store at the mall, sure enough, that sales lady somehow recognized me. She got Amber over to the diamond engagement ring case, and she convinced her to pick out some rings. Man, she even got her to try them on! This lady was good! She wrote some numbers on a card and then she measured Amber’s ring finger. She wrote her finger size on the card and then she gave me the card, ‘just in case’, she said. She was really smooth.”
“What did you do next?” Did you buy one? Did Amber pick it out?”
“Heck NO!
I still hadn’t proposed - not officially, anyway. We left the store and went for a bite to eat. Amber was so excited, she reminded me of a little kid at the fair. There was no way I was going to propose in the food court, but Amber and I did talk about the rings she liked, and we talked about getting married. I told her that when the time was right, I would know it.
Man, it’s crazy. I was so excited, I hardly slept that night. The next morning I called to see if that sales lady would be at the store. Thank God she said YES! I told her what time I would be in on my lunch hour. I also told her I would have only about 40 minutes in the store because of drive time. She basically said ‘no problem’.”
“Great, man. Did you spill the beans at work?”
“Yeah, I had to tell someone so I told my boss. I couldn’t keep it to myself, ya know? And he just said ‘good luck’.”
“So what did your boss say when you came back with the ring? Did he pat you on the back, give you a hand shake, what?”
“You know what, Sam? I never bought the darn ring that day!”
“Why the heck not?”
“Well, I got to the store and my sales lady was with someone else. Can you believe that? I was so ticked!”
“What happened? I thought she said she would be there?”
“Yeah, she was there, but she didn’t wait for me to get there. I thought I had a freakin’ appointment with her. Guess it’s first come, first served at the mall. She told me she would be with me in a few minutes, so I said OK, and I waited. And I waited. I must have paced around that store for 10-15 minutes. Finallly, someone else came over to me and said they could help me. I gave them the card with the #’s on it. She said she had no idea what the #’s meant. I felt totally defeated. Here I am, on my lunch hour, expecting to be in and out in a few minutes. Darn, I didn’t know what to do . The girl was nice enough, but she said it would have helped if there were some pictures on the card. So, I asked her what I should do? She asked me if I had any idea which were Amber’s favorite rings? My mind went totally blank.”
“What did you do”
“I told her my sales girl was supposed to know all that, not me. Well, maybe I should know, but I thought that was all covered. The new salesgirl suggested I go with a solitaire ring. Then Amber could come back and pick out the ring she really wanted.”
“I don’t know, man. Doesn’t that kind of ruin the surprise?”
“That’s exactly what I thought. So I told her I didn’t want to do that. You know what she did? She called another salesperson over to the diamond counter. At this point I looked at my watch. I’m already late for work, so I was getting a bit antsy. The lady introduced herself and basically asked how could she help me? I’m like totally agitated by now, you know? The other salesgirl gave a brief re-cap of what had happened. The second one, or is it the third salesperson??? agreed and told me to buy the solitaire. It would be perfect! Solitaires are time-less!”
“Oh man, what did you do?”
“I walked over to my ‘original’ sales lady and excused my interruption with her customer.”
“You didn’t!”
“Heck, yeah! She let me down. I was SO excited about buying that ring for Amber. I gave that lady a piece of my mind, then I left the store.”
“Dang!!”
“You know what, Sam? I stormed out of that store so fast I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I was so upset. I went back to work and I told my boss what happened. He told me to shop On-Line!”
“Yeah, right Chris, like who buys an engagement ring on-line?”
“Me!”
“What!”
“Yeah, go figure. My boss suggested I check out diamond.com. He said he found the site when he was looking for a 25th wedding anniversary gift for his wife. He said the site was easy to navigate, very organized and that diamond.com would definitely have what I wanted.”
“But Chris, if you didn’t know what Amber wanted, how could you buy it on-line without telling her?”
“You know what, Sam? I was so upset with the jewelry store at the mall. I had to think it through. I went home that night and checked out the site, diamond.com. True to his word, my boss was right. The site had hundreds of engagement rings. I was sold! I decided to take Amber to dinner on the weekend - - we went to our favorite fancy place. I had pre-arranged to have music played at our table, and I ordered expensive champaigne. I decided to make the proposal the surprise, not the ring selection.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Well, since I had taken the sales lady’s advice and brought Amber in, I knew if I didn’t get her the ‘ring of her dreams’ she’d be disappointed. So at dinner, I came right out and told her about my experience at the jewelry store. I told her how I wanted to buy her dream ring for her. I didn’t want to let her down. So I promised her she’d find her dream ring on diamond.com.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah, I told Amber that the site was amazing and that she could pick any ring she wanted.”
“Was she disappointed?”
“HHMMM, I don’t think so, Sam. She looked at me and asked me if that was my idea of a proposal? I just said to her, let’s go ring shopping, for real!
“And we went back to my place and we went on diamond.com. Amber seemed way more excited than she was at the the jewelry store trying on rings! Dude, we looked at hundreds of engagement rings on diamond.com. Amber found one she liked way better than the one she liked at the jewelry store at the mall. Plus, she told me that none of her friends would have this ring. I guess that two or three of her friends actually have the same ring she had liked at the mall store. It was great! And I was totally relaxed!”
“So, it all worked out? What happened next?”
“Man, I bought Amber her ‘dream’ ring!”
“Then what happened?”
“Sam, I can’t kiss and tell!”
“Well Chris, I guess Katie and I are going shopping on diamond.com. Sweet!”
