Weddingbee Blog

Miss Kiwi… I would have been SHOCKED that a jeweler actually put her greasy thumbprint smack-dab on my center stone. What–is she new? No touchies!! Good thing you are going elsewhere. I find that jewelry stores located in malls are filled with bad sales people–with the exception of Ben Bridge (where I have NEVER EVER been disappointed). When we were initially looking at rings, a woman at Zales actually said, “So I see you like the markiss diamond.” I was like, “Huh? Oh you mean markeee.” She didn’t even know how to say her own product. Boo.

Good luck with your search!

When we went to the Zales Outlet by us (where FH got my e-ring) it was the first store went to. We tried on rings for him and ring wraps for me and got an idea of what we each liked. We narrowed it down to each of our favorites, but decided since it was our first visit anywhere we would hold off. When we told the saleslady this she looked at me and said (verbatim) “Are you kidding? I just cut the tag.” I really wanted to be like “So what? Tape it back together.” But we just let it slide and got the info of the ones we liked on the back of her business card.

We went to some other places and I went back to the ZO a few days later to look at the wrap again. A different lady helped me and I told her of the awful experience I had and she was mortified. I also spoke to her manager. One thing was for sure - if I decided to buy that wrap, it would most definitely NOT give her a dime of the profit.

Boy am I glad I went back and talked to someone else. If we had let that lady guilt us into buying because she cut the tag, I would have walked out of there with a white gold wrap, with the impression it was platinum!!! When I went back and told the other lady I wanted to look at the platinum ring wrap in the case, she told me they don’t carry platinum but might be able to order it.

I’m so glad we decided to shop around. Not only did we find a better deal at Kay, we formed an actual relationship with those ladies, who were absolutely wonderful.

We had an interesting experience with the Zales Outlet near us as well. We went after he proposed to me, so we could pick out the band together, with the intention of having my uncle (a jeweler) set the diamond — but did not share this info upfront.

The saleswoman was sort of tacky. We told her what we were looking for, (Something in the 3/4 to 1ct range) and she immediately gave me a 1 ct, then even put a 1.5 ct on me! You need to understand that my hands are small. My current just-over-1-ct is borderline big on my finger, but the 1.5 she put on me - !!!
Plus all their bands were plain, solid gold/platinum, we were looking for something with some detail.
After I tried some on, she said “Why don’t you go shopping next door at West Elm, honey, while we talk numbers…”
Ew.

We bought my e-ring band at a local jeweler recommended to us. Where we later went back to buy our wedding bands.

Sometimes the people in the mall outlet stores are just horrible. They’ll hire anyone though - trust me, I know someone who worked at one… probably because they got fired from Burger King. Never feel bad about leaving and then coming back for a different salesperson.

[...] very wishy washy about this wedding band thing. Recently, I flip flopped with two different posts: one about absolutely getting a diamond wedding band, and another one about wanting to save money and [...]