How to Get the Perfect Engagement Ring? Ask Her to Help

It's that time of year again. It's December. And you know what that means. No, not that it's the offical Holiday Season. Not that it's time to make plans to go see the family either. What it means is that people are going to be getting engaged! That's right, December is the most popular month of the year for marriage proposals. You might have thought Spring, but it's actually the coldest darkest time of the year when people decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together. But before anyone can pop the big question, there is that little question of what to put on her finger to worry about.

It was four winters ago now, about this time of year, that I popped the question to my beloved Anna. Not really THE question, it was more of a prelude to THE question, but it pretty much made my intentions clear when I asked, "If we were to get an engagement ring, what would it look like?"

I know it wasn't technically a proposal, but it was pretty close to it. I actually went back and forth about whether or not to ask for her opinion because it felt like ruining the big surprise later on. But then again the alternative wasn't too appealing either. Here I was about to make the biggest purchase of my life--an item that someone else would be wearing everyday for the rest of her life--and I have no idea what she likes, and oh yeah, know next to nothing about rings in general. Way to be set up for a major screw up. It wasn't only the fear of buying the wrong ring that had me worried, the process itself was daunting. We were already living together and so figuring out the logistics of such a high stakes operation without her finding out wouldn't be easy either.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the whole idea of keeping it a secret from her bothered me on a philosophical level, too. The tradition of ring buying itself feeds into this larger idea that the biggest decision in two people's lives should be carefully thought out by one person and then just sprung on the other. The notion that marriage is just something for a guy to decide seems like one of those rules that should have been discarded back when they got rid of the one about women only being allowed to wear skirts and dresses. I guess progress has only taken us so far. It's still pretty taboo for a woman to pop the question (although it is becoming slightly more acceptable). Maybe some day it will even become the norm. And it's even more of a no-no not to give your lady that rock on her finger before you wed. Somewhere around 80% of engaged women get the ring.

Regardless of who asks who, there is still the issue of how to approach the ring. To be sure, there are other cultures in the world that don't follow the code of the ring. A tradition in Wales says all guys have to do is carve a spoon for their loved ones to get engaged. Too bad I'm not Welsh, I'd like to think I can whittle with the best of them! While it is entirely possible to get engaged with a modest ring, or without a ring altogether, the fact remains that there is tremendous pressure to deliver something spectacular. There is a whole Wedding Industrial Complex that tells women from the day they can hold a Barbie doll how their Ken will come sweep them off their feet and properly marry them--and the ring usually shows up in that storybook tale.

Now Anna has never been a materialistic person, and told me from day one that whatever I got her she'd cherish, which I truly believe. But it's also true that I thought she'd appreciate having something she really liked as well. So I once I made up my mind to ask for her thoughts, I didn't just take a few notes. I took her shopping.

We must have hit at least a dozen jewelers, though from the way my head was spinning I could have sworn it was a hundred. After we figured out what shape, color, and cut she wanted her stones, we went out to a band specialist so we could figure that out, too. I left nothing to chance. By the end, I knew exactly what she liked and all I had to do was place the order. That took a lot of the stress out of the decision. It actually felt good to know that it was something we were both looking forward rather than something I had to hide from her. And while she knew what was coming months before she ever opened that little blue box it came in, she still didn't know where, when, and how she was going to get asked THE question. But that's a story for a different day.

3:30 PM ET | 12- 3-2008 | permalink

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