Archive for March, 2008

50 days left

Posted on March 20, 2008. Filed under: personal, wedding blogs |

Oh my goodness. I truly cannot believe it.  There is fifty days left until my wedding! That is absolutely insane.  I feel like it was yesterday that I blogged about my engagement.  I am so excited though.  Not just for the wedding day, but for the marriage.  That is something that has kept me going.  I can’t just be excited about one day.  A marriage is forever… how does the saying go? Till death do us part.  I intend to keep that vow.

There has been a bit of turbulence in my wedding plans but thank God that He continues to work everything out.  Where should I start? I will share my story of my engagement ring issue… 

It started when Jon bought me the engagement ring. It was perfect. It was beautiful.  The only problem was, it didn’t fit with the wedding band I wanted.  It didn’t really fit with any bands because of the way it was shaped.  But, this wasn’t a big deal.  There was a 30 day refund from People’s and a 90 day exchange.  We went to People’s and asked about the options.  We found another ring I liked, but the diamond was really crappy.  It had a lot of visible inclusions in it.  So I asked if we could get the band but just have another diamond put in it.  The manager told us that he would look into it, but stressed that we should come back on December 8th when a specialty custom ring guy was coming in.  Apparently this guy was great.  He had amazing diamonds and did a fantastic job for a great price.  We took his advice and waited for the 8th.  Meanwhile, our 30 day refund was up and they had strung us along past the 30 days. There would be no more refund, only an exchange. 

That day when we got to the jewelry store, we talked with the custom guy.  He tried to sell us these super expensive diamonds and we tried our best to explain what price range we were looking for, and that I was a student.  It didn’t seem to be looking good, so I walked back over to the manager and asked him the update on the other ring we were looking at.  (The one that needed the new diamond.)  Apparently the manager had not looked into it, and he couldn’t tell me if the “diamond switch” was even possible. Frustrated, Jon and I went back to the custom guy and tried to see what we could do.  He so graciously ended up “lowering” the price for us so we could “afford” it.  It ended up costing us $1000 extra dollars on top of the exchange, and we would be getting a smaller diamond… but the important thing was that we were getting the ring part custom made to be 3 mm thick all the way around.  This way it would fit the wedding band we wanted.  We paid for the ring and were told that it would be 6-8 weeks.  So for 7 weeks I went without an engagement ring.

After 7 weeks, Jon got the call the engagement ring was ready.  We went to pick it up and I took it home.  As we were in my car and I was looking at my ring that night.  I was surprised at the band.  It didn’t really look right.  All they had done was put our diamond on one of their many average bands.  The band was not custom at all. It was not even close to being 3 mm all the way around.  So, we went back to the store and told the manager.  He took the ring and promised to send it back and that in 10 days it would be fixed at no cost to us.  So after ten days, I went back into the store to pick up my ring.  I was told that the FedEx hadn’t come yet and my ring was in there.  So I went to class, and called after I was done.  Want to know what I heard?  “Oh, well your ring wasn’t in the package.” I just about flipped out.  I hung up and when I got home I called the People’s customer service.  I explained everything that went on.  I told them that I got engaged in October and it was already February and I didn’t even have a ring yet.  I was to be getting married in 3 months! The girl on the phone was very helpful and called the Regional office for me and did everything she could.  She called me back and asked me what I wanted to do.  I asked for a complete refund because I just didn’t want to deal with People’s anymore.  She agreed and worked everything out.  That night Jon and I went back to Peoples and got a complete refund.  With a half an hour left until close, we drove to the north end and went into Ben Moss.  I picked out a ring that ended up being even better then the custom one, and we saved $600.  And to top that, she gave us taxes in!  My favourite part of this was that they gave me the ring the next day! I couldn’t believe it, I bought my ring one day and I got it the next. Even the warranty plan was better.  Needless to say, after three rings I am finally happy. I love this ring and I wouldn’t change it for anything.  My suggestion to all is… stay clear of Peoples.