Engagement Ring!

I decided for the wedding I wanted to have my hair professionally dyed, but dyed semi-permanently.  The boxes at the store just don't have my right dark brown color.  Over $100 later, though, I probably should have just used the store box stuff, because she just went black!  Lesson learned.

Jon came home after work, as he has done every day for 7 months now, but he was acting funny.  Kind of jittery.  I asked him what was going on, and he had me sit on the couch, where he whipped out my engagement ring!!!  I am beyond thrilled that the jeweler was able to get it done in time for the wedding.  And not only my engagement ring, but Jon's ring, my wedding band, and the three rings he had commissioned for the girls.

This has been a long time coming.  Because we weren't sure WHEN we would get married, but knew we were going to way back in the early spring, Jon and I looked at some stuff, and put together what we would each like in my ring.  He took it to a jeweler that had high reviews, and was promised the world back in April or so.  He was not delivered the world.  Here we were, last week, and they still couldn't even get the renderings right, let alone be trusted to make the ring and in time.  I had honestly resigned myself to marrying without rings, but was concerned because Jon had had the greatest idea for the girls.  

He wanted them to be included in some fashion, and had the idea to have tiny rings made for them that match my wedding band.  We had planned to have some little ceremony where he presented the girls their 'family' rings as part of our marriage.  I really wanted this to still happen, but last week it was not looking good.  I had suggested to him a couple times a jeweler I had used a couple years ago, but he had already taken his designs to the other, and felt invested because he had already paid them in full.  Well, last week, we were both fearing no rings, so we went to my jeweler, who was AWESOME.  He not only said he thought the rings would be do-able in our time frame, but told us the truth about some of our design ideas...they weren't recommended for rose gold.  Jewelers will make them for people, and he was willing to also, but he made sure we understood that it wasn't going to work very well, and likely result in lost diamonds and problems with our settings.  We appreciated his honesty, especially when one, the other jeweler hadn't mentioned ANYTHING about problems with our designs, and second, because he could have just done it and been able to charge us a lot more money.

So.  That was Friday.  There was still no guarantee we would have them by the wedding, but we hoped.  And he delivered!!  And for over $1000 less than the other jeweler!  Jon had the difficult task of breaking things off with the first jeweler, including initiating a charge back on his credit card because they were claiming they needed weeks to get us our money back.  No bueno, my friends.

Jon and I both are VERY happy with all the rings and I am so excited to wear it.  Guys, it's an amazing ring!

Of course I had to take some closeups and send them to my mom and Tara, who have both been anxiously awaiting this day, too!  It's absolutely gorgeous.  Also huge!

It's a knife edge rose gold band with a Tiffany setting for the square cushion cut stone.  Bigger than is appropriate to talk about!  The wedding band is also knife edge and will sit right next to the engagement.  The girls rings are tiny, thin little bands, also knife edge, and Jon's is big and thick with a very subtle knife edge.  They all match, and I am so excited for this surprise for the girls!  They have no idea!

Amidst the excitement, Jon had a job of work to do in setting up our new outdoor dining table.

And then I convinced him to take a cute picture to plaster on social media!  T minus 4 days!!