To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.
After only dating a few months, future Husband and I were already looking at rings. Crazy, I know. Let’s just say I didn’t bring that up in conversation with my parents on our weekly call! I think that might have freaked them out, no matter how much they liked the guy or not.
In those late night conversations that college seniors are wont to have, we dreamed about our future together – what types of jobs we might get after graduation (side note: before I met future Husband, I had my sights set on a cruise ship after graduation to be a cruise director! What a different life God had in mind for me), where we could live, how many kids we might have. I told him during one of those dreaming sessions that he couldn’t propose until May. Because that was so much closer to graduation (the same month even!) and that’s the only way that this thing was going to work. Mom and Dad wanted to see me close to being done with college, and know that their little girl would be on the right path and officially out of the nest. So that’s the way it had to happen.
But before one can propose, one has to find a ring. In between studying, rehearsals, and other fun senior things, Future Husband and I spent a bunch of weekends at the mall, going to every ring shop there was, over and over again. One afternoon, we were at a store that no longer exists in the Galleria, and we found it. The one. Well, it was a gorgeous engagement ring by itself, but it wasn’t until they added the wedding band on one side and the anniversary band on the other side that I fell for it. So many sparkles! [By the way, I’m still waiting for that engagement band to appear! I think five years would be a perfect time. ;)]
We picked out a few others that were also gorgeous and called it a day. We didn’t walk out of there with a ring because I wanted some kind of a surprise on the day of our engagement. We discussed what I wanted in a ring, in addition to the styles we had just looked at it. I thought color was more important than clarity, because let’s face it, who carries a jeweler’s loop with them wherever they go to see the microscopic inclusions in a particular diamond? Yeah, me neither. ;)
Our closest friends and roommates knew that future Husband was getting very close to purchasing the ring but we tried to keep it under wraps for the time being. But we had a looooong few months to go and as time passed, we started telling more and more people our little secret.
During those spring months, future Husband apparently bought the ring with his father, without me knowing it. While he waited for the ring to come in from the manufacturer (it had to be specially made to fit my small ring ringer – it’s a size 3.75!), we started planning the trip to my parents’ house in Texas for the Easter break.
Because Future Husband had to ask my dad for permission before he popped the question. Oh boy.
To be continued…
