THE RING

You might remember THIS accident that happened back in June. Our bodies weren't the only thing that came out bloodied, battered and bruised. My wedding ring looked like Two-Face from Batman. One side was scratched up really, REALLY bad, while the other side was perfect. When we took it into get fixed a few weeks ago they told me that I would be without it for a week. A WEEK!?! I had two choices I could A) play hooker/home wrecker for a week and go without my ring or B) resort to the my first engagement ring. What you ask? You had an engagement ring before the engagement ring. Why yes I did.




It all happened back in June of 2005. Clayton and I knew we were going to get married, I just didn't have the ring yet. In fact we had the temple booked before Clayton proposed and before I had the ring. Yes we were one of those couples. If you know Clayton you know that he is somewhat of a perfectionist. Not only that but decisions are HARD for him (except who to marry that is...I was an easy choice because I was such a catch...haha). So when it came to choosing a ring he wanted to do it all himself...which was totally fine by me. I showed him different styles I liked and he came up with a design for the band. Now it was diamond choosing time. He had mucho appointments with a guy from his home ward who was a jeweler. This guy showed him diamond after diamond. Never were they good enough so back to square one they went. It was a loooong process.



So there we had about 7 weeks until we were to get married and he hadn't proposed and we hadn't planned anything (except for scheduling the Temple). Not that I cared. I was with the man I loved and that was all I needed. But I am also sort of a procrastinator. We were walking out of Wal*Mart one day and there off to the side was one of those claw machines. Usually we don't give those things a glance, but for some reason this day we did. Inside was a bright, shiny diamond ring with a plastic gold band. Realizing how long this ring process was taking Clayton suggested that we should just get my ring there. I agreed. After realizing that he didn't have any change he asked me if I had $0.50 (yes I had to buy my own ring). The money went in the machine, Clayton took charge of the control stick and told those claws "what was up" (aka he got/won the ring).


Little did I know that he would be proposing later that night. When he did propose he FIRST gave me the fake Wal*Mart claw machine ring. I thought it was a joke. But then seconds later found out that he was serious and he had the real deal ring. When we went to my house the next day to see my family I wore the fake ring to see what they would say. They were all so nice to tell me how "pretty" it was when it was so blatantly obvious that they didn't like it but were saying it was nice to spare my feelings. I wanted to see how long I could keep them going that the gold plastic ring was the real deal, but it only lasted 30 minutes or so because Clayton didn't want them to think that he had bad taste (uhhh...they couldn't think that because he picked me) and didn't know me or my tastes at all. So I finally introduced to the real ring. Which they liked much better.

The Wal*Mart fake ring and my abnormally large hair pours And that is the story of the first engagement ring.

PS I wore it for a week proudly!

PPS

Dear SE Needhams,

Sorry that I didn't originally buy my ring from your store. If you really believe the Needhams "is the store where Utah gets engaged" you have eaten one too may of your own diamonds. I did not like the look your clerk/sales lady gave me when I answered her question on if I bought my ring from you guys. You would have thought that I was coming into your store with some sort of infectious disease.

Sincerely

Heidi