Ring a ding ding

I love jewelery.

Who doesn't?

So within days of being engaged I wanted to start looking for my wedding band. Initially I tried on a couple but they simply looked "gorky" with my engagement ring. Mostly because the shape of my engagement ring - Ian said, "that's how they get ya," but I then reminded him that he was the one who designed my ring.

So it was painfully obvious from day one that my wedding band would need to be custom. A "quick" (aka 2-3 hour) trip to see Roberta later and we were in business.

Ian's ring... that was a different story. He is very picky. He is also used to the variety of shopping online and doesn't understand that in a store, unless you want something custom made (which will cost ya) you have to choose from what you see. We've run into this problem with everything from china patterns and cutlery to venues. The ring was no different.

Initially during our visit with Roberta, Ian had tried a number of rings on but ring after ring Ian didn't see anything that made him say, "that is my ring!" So it was decided that he would go custom too. Roberta told Ian to go look online and see what struck his fancy and get back to her and she'll figure something out. So off we went and I fully expected Ian to "do his homework".

He didn't.

So a couple of months passed and we went back to see Roberta about my ring and she asked if Ian had found anything that he thought was interesting. He looked like a dear in headlights and said... no? We left and he swore up and down that she was going to do the looking and I told him... no you were going to.

So again I wait for Ian to do his homework.

He doesn't.

So finally I said enough is enough. I told him that he needed to pick a ring because the price of gold was going up and the longer he waited the higher the cost of his ring would be. That finally got him going. He said he needed to try them on because pictures were not cutting it.
This leads us to last night when we went to Mayfair mall which has many MANY jewelery stores and we started trying.

The first store, Michael Hill - the sales lady was a little too... greasy car salesman-ish. She was "playing with numbers on the computer" to get the price down for us. I felt like rolling my eyes. We left there and I asked Ian if his top pick was the ring... he said no. Moving on!

The next was Anne Louise. The lady there was much less pushy but a little uninvolved. It felt like she didn't really care. The one there Ian like more then the first so we were making progress. If nothing else we were getting a sense of what he liked v/s what he didn't.

Last stop as it was getting late and Ian was wearing thin, was Lugaro's. We walked in and Ian said there was one ring that really caught his eye. He tried it on and really really liked it. HAZAA!! He seemed happy with his choice except for one small detail so I suggested maybe trying on some of the really cool looking tungsten rings. His reaction was, "sure why not". He put on one that was far too harsh and then put on one that was perfect. It was comfort fit (which he wanted) and just "popped" on him.

He waffled between the two rings for a while and wanted to see what they would look like with a really nice watch... he claims that one day he will actually wear a really nice watch every day... ya we'll see.

They both looked great with the watch (which he not so subtly hinted at wanting) and the sales person, who was wonderful, said - Sleep on it. That impressed me the most. So we went away and as we were walking away Ian said, lets get it! However at this point the mall was closing and I really wanted Ian to sleep on his decision before committing.

So we did go home and talk about it some more and he has decided that this is going to be his ring... only now he wants to figure out a way to bargain down the price... oh boy!

Anyway for those who are curious this is a pic of his ring