Wedding Blog

Three months after we started dating, Mr. Hummingbird and I went to the Renaissance Festival he worked summers at when he was a teenager and he bought me a lovely and simple silver ring with an inlaid stone.

“I know it’s not much,” he said as he slid it onto my finger, “but someday I replace it with something better.”

When we first talked about getting engaged, the idea of replacing my original ring with “something better” was immediately discussed. Finally, when we felt we were ready to make things official, we went ring shopping. Our main ideas when we began our search were nothing too fancy and nothing too expensive. I barely wear jewelery and although DeBeers would like to convince me otherwise, I did not feel that Mr. Hummingbird spending three months salary on a ring was right and/or fair (this is not to condemn anyone with a DeBeers ring - I’m sure it’s beautiful - I just feel that the commitment you make when you decide to marry someone isn’t any less significant if you decide to go with a cheaper ring).

Anyway, we sat down and worked out how much we could spend and ended up deciding on getting something done by a local designer who worked through an artists collective not too far from where we lived. We made an appointment and sat down with her to work out the style and design of the ring - a small silver band with a botanical engraving and a small sapphire (my birthstone). We were told the ring would take a month to make so we put down a deposit and made arrangements to come back in four weeks, when we would pick up the ring and officially announce our engagement. It was the longest four weeks of our lives, waiting with excitement to finally tell our friends and family. The first Thursday in May, we got the call and we ran to the collective to pick up the box. That night Mr. Hummingbird unveiled the comic and we were engaged. Everything seemed perfect.

However, the next morning, while we were getting ready to head downtown to meet my parents and Mr. Hummingbird’s mom to celebrate, things went south. When I went to shampoo my hair, the soap I was using turned my ring pure black. Freaked out, I didn’t know what to do, so Mr. Hummingbird and I went back to the jewelery maker who happily cleaned the ring and told me that, if the metal of the ring was reacting to my skin, it would need to be plated.

So, after the dinner, I brought the ring back to the jewelers to be plated . . . they kept it for a week and a half before finally returning it to me . . . but the ring kept discolouring so I brought it back yet again. This time it was gone for two weeks. When I went to get pick up the ring this time, the ring’s surface seemed strangely uneven and there was a definite change in the jeweler’s attitude. She was a lot less cheerful and told me that, if I had more problems with the ring that maybe “(I) just (couldn’t) wear that kind of jewelery.”

Once again, the problem persisted. I felt like crap. The jeweler obviously wouldn’t be any help, so I sought out other sources. When I brought in the ring, they told me there was nothing they could do - I was stuck with a corroding ring.

I didn’t want to make a big deal of it and hurt Mr. Hummingbird’s feeling so I went a few weeks without saying anything, but finally after about a month, I broke down and admitted I was unhappy about the situation. I told Mr. Hummingbird that it had nothing to do with him, but that I didn’t want to wear a ring that reacted to my skin like that, so if it was all the same to him, we’d just do without an engagement ring. It made me a little sad that the jewelery situation hadn’t worked out, but with the move and various other financial obligations, we could not afford a replacement and besides, it certainly didn’t make us any less engaged.

Anyway, a couple months ago, I was sitting around the apartment reading when Mr. Hummingbird entered the room wearing a suit and holding a ring box. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was sorry the engagement ring hadn’t worked out but that he loved me and wanted me to happy. And so he dropped to one knee and proposed to me all over again. With my original Renaissance Festival ring.

So ladies, I present to you my new old bling! Looks like my something better was with me all along.