The Proposal, pt. I (The Ring)

I probably first started seriously considering proposing when we went on our road trip last summer. We started off in Nashville, drove up the West Coast to Portland and then drove back.

In all, it was about two solid weeks of seeing each other every day. We didn't even remotely get tired of each other, although we were basically physically exhausted the whole time. The fact that we got so close on the trip and the added stress of the prospect of going off to school in New York for 9 months made me really start thinking about never leaving her again.

But the summer ended and I was off to New York City. The first few months of being away were enough to convince me that I really did love this woman and never wanted to leave her again. So I started thinking about buying a ring...

But since I was on a graduate student budget (basically $0/month income), I had to be creative. I admittedly thought about getting a used ring, or very small or synthetic diamonds, but none of those options seemed to be right for Sandi at all. As I searched and searched, I noticed that there were a certain class of rings, deep in the obscure parts of Etsy.com handmade crafts section that were as unique as Sandi is: they were colored diamonds, usually rose-cut, and not the transparent, sparkly diamonds that most people are used to. I really liked the idea, but wasn't exactly sure of myself. So I asked Nayla, a friend of mine from Cornell, to go to a unique jewelry store in Brooklyn that sold highly artistic and unique rings. I told her that I was only thinking about getting a birthday present for Sandi, and was still a bit nervous about the idea of admitting that I was thinking about buying a diamond. But eventually, Nayla got it out of me that I was thinking about getting a diamond ring and she affirmed my suspicion that to certain Sandi-like people, a unique colorful diamond is preferable over a small or fake white one. I trusted Nayla's sense of taste in this matter.

Since the Brooklyn store was overly expensive and had very small rings, I decided that I was going to find my own stone, especially since I was in one of the world-wide centers of the diamond trade. After searching through the diamond district, I couldn't find anything that was even close to the unique grey diamond that I was imagining. Also, I went on Sukkot, a Jewish holiday, which was kinda a mistake because many of the diamond stores are Jewish. Over half of the stores were closed. I talked to a real diamond person and since I knew the price points, knew that there was no way that I was going to get something real for anything reasonable at all, and the fake diamonds (I liked Moissonite the best) were reasonably priced but not that exciting. Dismayed, I turned to the internet. Eventually, I found the one website that carried what I was interested in. Unfortunately, gem wholesalers tend not to be open to the public. So basically I insinuated that I was an art student at Columbia and needed a diamond for a piece that I was working on... Technically, I was in the school of *Arts and Sciences*... so not that large of a fib. He even wanted proof that I was a student, so I sent over a proof of enrollment and a picture of my drivers license and reluctantly, he let me in to see his diamonds.

I spent a good half an hour in a tiny dark office above the diamond district looking at dozens of very tiny diamonds. There were only a couple that were in the size I wanted (De Beers did a good enough job in their marketing to convince me that I am not really a man if my diamond is less than 1 kt) but eventually I decided that I would go with the grey medium sized diamond. There was a larger very dark one and an incredible orange diamond, but the lighter grey felt right. After I paid, the merchant held it up to the sunny window and exclaimed about its luminance and claimed it was worth twice what I paid for it. I felt good with my slightly shiny grey diamond (at a manly 1.1 kt), and he wished me luck on my project (heehee) as I left.

Now was time to search for somebody to put it all together. Combing through the etsy site for different custom jewelers, I finally found Val Kasinskas's shop and her home page.

After seeing the quality of her work and noticing that she is also from Portland, I decided that she was the perfect one to put it all together. I told her that I wanted a good, white metal and she chose Palladium, which is in the same family as Platinum but much lighter, and I told her that I wanted an earthy, hand-made texture to the ring and bezel, and she put it all together. Sandi calls the texture tree bark, which is pretty much perfect for us and our Northwest forest-y tendencies.

After a good 6 weeks of emails and nervous obsession on my part, Val finally came up with a ring: 

So now I had a ring, somehow, after making a hundred tiny decisions to get to that point. And I was getting ready to finally make the gift.