engagement rings

Girls, you know it's hard enough finding that perfect black or brown boot, little black dress.. or pretty much any other staple piece for your wardrobe.. so what about your engagement ring. Something you are to wear on your hand for the rest. of. your. life. Seriously? It's hard enough to find a cell phone case I don't get sick of in a month, but a ring.. forever..? And on top of that {traditionally} you aren't even supposed to pick the thing out yourself! Trust your boyfriend to pick out a ring.. you will wear.. forever.. I mean I can't get Adam to match his pants & shirt on a regular basis.. kidding! {but really}.

Well even Adam wasn't comfortable with this. So after we started talking about getting married we began the search for a ring. Orginally, I wanted a diamond band- simple, but fun. Adam on the other hand wasn't a fan. He thought it would make him look cheap since I didn't have some blingin' diamond. ha. SO the search continued. All I knew was I wanted yellow gold.. & something somewhat unique. Adam proposed the day after my birthday with this ring:

I loved the ring and was so happy.. until after a week when the centerstone all but fell out- Like I could literally pop it out. Well at this point we look at the paperwork {you know men, of course he hadn't looked at it yet} and realized the salesperson had lied about sevaral things about the ring.. when we went to Kays they pretty much said nothing about the ring and just asked if we would like to return it. Really? Not oh we'll fix this? Nothing. So, we returned it. I was devestated I wouldn't have the ring that Adam got down on one kneed with and asked me to be his wife. But we knew this was for the better. We didn't want to invest so much money into a ring I will be wearing the rest of my life.. that broke after a week of wear. We immediately went to McKenzie & Smiley, a local jewler in Clarksville, TN. The staff was AWESOME. We got to design the ring together and make something that we both loved. I got to pick out the shank- whick is the band; the prongs {did ya'll realize how many types of prongs their are?!} and the diamond! This is what we created:

Although it was a little more stressful than we expected it to be- we both love how it turned out. I am so excited about how unique it is! I think with a diamond wedding band it will look great! ...&even though it's not the ring Adam proposed with.. it was still special creating it together!

So girls, did you drop some hints to your fiance about the type of ring you wanted or did you give him full reign???? Did this end up working for you.. or do you regret it??