Sorry about the lateness of the posting. Things – particularly weather and some spotty power access – happened.
Anyway.
I thought you might all find it interesting to learn a little bit of trivia. Did you know that roughly 40% of all marriage proposals take place between the months of November and February? And the most popular time to propose marriage is Christmas?
Here are a couple other burning questions about engagement you probably never thought to ask. (more…)
It’s a good thing Vicki Belanger hasn’t moved house in seventeen years.
You see, seventeen years ago, Belanger’s siser, Valerie Lynch was putting sunscreen on her two very small children and her young nephew, all of whom were under the age of five, before heading off to a waterfront outing. She was doing this in Belanger’s back yard. As a precaution, she slipped off her wedding and engagement rings and put them aside on a platform next to the swing set.
Unfortunately, she forgot to put her rings back on before they left.
When Lynch discovered her rings were missing, she raced back to her sister’s house only to find… she couldn’t find them. About a year and a half later, Belanger found Lynch’s wedding ring, but not the diamond engagement ring.
And that’s where matters stood until October 28 of this year. By then, Belanger had met up with Kent Blethen, a jewelry hunting enthusiast. Belanger told him of her sister’s missing ring and Blethen offered to help her look for it.
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See Jennifer Aniston. See her fiance, Justin Theroux. See the eight carat rock on her ring finger.
Look, if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week you know my longstanding distaste for diamonds. They aren’t my thing. Never have been, never will be. And yet, I stand utterly mystified and completely annoyed at the general reaction to Jennifer Aniston’s new engagement ring.
Why? Because so many people are lining up to hate on it so for being too big, too gaudy, and not understated enough.
Look, I’m well aware that Jennifer Aniston is known for her trademark sleek, simple, girl-next-door-taken-to-eleven fashion sense. I know this ring is the opposite of girl next door. I know people expected her to sport a sleek, simple, super-tasteful ring.
But when I look at the design of this ring, I see that one spectacular, over the top accessory that really makes a super simple outfit. It’s really a very simple ring, except for the size of the stone. And even if I didn’t see that, it wouldn’t be up to me to judge that ring.
I don’t know whether Theroux chose it on his own, if Jennifer chose it herself, or if they collaborated on the decision. That – like the price tag – is between them and their jeweler. Whatever the case, she seems happy to wear it. And that – combined with an ability to pay the jeweler’s bill, which I’m not terribly worried about with this couple – is what matters.
Besides, just a few months ago, the same yet opposite chatter accompanied the appearance of the ruby and diamond engagement ring Facebook founder Mark Zucker gave his lady love, Patricia Chen. He designed it himself, taking into account her Chinese heritage and her upcoming career as a doctor as well as, presumably, her taste, and style mavens across the world howled in angry disdain that he had (according to their assumptions) spent so little cold, hard cash on the hardware. If Chen is going to practice medicine, the sort of ring they wanted Zucker to buy her would have just gotten in the way… and probably been denounced as too gaudy, anyway.
Jennifer Aniston is not a doctor treating patients. She is an actress. She’ll mostly leave her engagement ring off when working, and it’ll look good on a red carpet. If she likes it and Theroux likes it, there’s no reason on earth they should change it.
Ultimately, if the ring works for everyone involved in the engagement, it works. If the person giving it can’t afford to do so or the person wearing it hates it, that’s when you’ve got a problem.
Big or small, diamond or no, gaudy or plain, can’t we just love the symbolism without worrying so much about the price tag or whether it seems like a departure from a signature style?
My ring makes me happy. Her ring apparently makes her happy.
That really ought to be enough.
I’ve never been a fan of diamonds. When I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time at the tender age of ten, I knew I had met a kindred spirit when she talked about how disappointed she was the first time she saw a diamond and it wasn’t the brilliant purple of amethyst as she’d imagined. By the time I’d read my way far enough in the series for Anne to get engaged to Gilbert (Spoiler!), I was very much in favor of her choice of a pearl for an engagement ring.
When Mr. Twistie and I set the date, I did Anne one better and got a ring with no stone whatsoever. I love my sterling silver frog prince and wouldn’t exchange him for all the tea in China, let alone all the diamonds in South Africa. At least I do drink tea.
But there’s a trend in engagement rings that has very nearly turned my feelings about diamonds upside down: uncut diamonds.
This ring by Bario-Neal features a rough diamond flanked by a combination of yellow sapphires and citrine. Depending on the size of the diamond (.5 – 1.0ct) and choice of metal (yellow gold, rose gold, white gold, or platinum) it runs between $2,050 and $3,524.
I don’t know about you, but I LOVE this ring. I like the fact that there’s an understated elegance to the main stone, and, yes, I do have a bit of a thing for citrine. I like yellow. One of the things I’ve always liked least about diamonds is one of the things that everyone else seems to prize most about them: the aggressive sparkle. I’m not a sparkly person. In this case, the sparkle is mitigated and I’m delighted.
My silver frog is still very much my favorite engagement ring of all time, and in no danger even if Mr. Twistie could afford to spend two or three grand on something that doesn’t need replacing. All the same, if I were getting engaged today instead of back when I did… I might be tempted to look at this or something very like it. I’m not afraid of my jewelry looking dated someday, nor of standing out from a crowd. I’m not much exercised about traditions that were created mostly by companies that profit from the creation of the tradition. I just know what I like, and I like this a lot.
So what say you? LOVE it? HATE it? Something else? Tell me what you think!
So.
It’s been a wild and wooly weekend in the world of wedding news. I can’t pick just one story to cover, so lucky you, you get to see several things all in one article.
Over at the HuffPo wedding page, Ira Weissman has written an interesting article on why the diamond engagement ring is a worthless scam. Okay, he doesn’t use those precise words, but he makes it very clear that there are plenty of other options and it might behove more couples to explore them more fully before buying a diamond.
You know me. If you’ve got your heart set on a diamond, then I’m firmly of the opinion that you should have what you want, so long as you can afford it. If, on the other hand, you’re not sure what you want or you don’t want a diamond, this article could be helpful to you in explaining your decision to others… or in making the actual decision.
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(via Fashionably Geek)
I’m too busy having a fangirl squee moment to write anything coherent.
Take the box! Take the box!
Sometimes it’s fun to take a gander at the weddings page at the Huffington Post just to see what’s being said there. The information and advice often ranges from the painfully trite to the downright deranged, but there’s also an occasional nugget of bridal goodness to be mined.
For instance, that photo at the top of this entry? That’s Len Kendall. When he decided to pop the big question, he went to Buzzfeed and posted this meme of himself asking Katie the Big Question… and invited his friends to create images in a similar vein to support him. The images include everything from Tim Tebow to Angelina Jolie’s right leg to… stuff I don’t recognize, but still find amusing. About the only one I didn’t see was Princess Beatrice’s hat from last spring’s royal wedding. Then again, I’m guessing the images at Huff Po don’t include every single effort.
BTW, the lady said yes.
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