Weddingbee Blog

I have not talked about my engagement ring, so here it is.

It’s not that I don’t like my engagement ring. I LOVE IT. Yet I often feel particularly uncomfortable about discussing it with people or for lack of a better phrase, “showing it off”. I guess I’ll reveal to you all my insecurity about the fact that my ring is a bit bigger than I expected (Ugh! It pained me to write that!!!). While I love it as the most lovely and generous gift that Mr. Swan has ever given me, I find that often some other people view my ring (or really engagement rings in general) in a different way.

The moment I got engaged to Mr. Swan I was this big ball of emotion and tears.

I looked at my ring and thought it looked great, but I think I was just so out of sorts and giddy that I didn’t really think about it much. Plus, it didn’t even fit my ring finger. I had a pretty expensive pinky ring for about a week before I got a chance to get it re-sized by the jeweler.

After I started to see friends and acquaintances post-engagement, people were starting to make more of a big deal about my ring than I was. I started to get upset. In my mind, I was just excited to even be getting married. My mother never got married, and again, most of my female family and friends are not. I was just happy to have found someone. Yet, all many people could talk about was the ring. As an illustrative example, I will share with you a “ring run in” that occurred with a relative of Mr. Swan last year during the holidays.

Pretty much, said relative walked into the room, asked me how I was doing, and then said, “Let’s see your ring,” all within the span of two minutes! I had just started a new, challenging and interesting job the month before. She didn’t ask me about that. I was spending my first major holiday away from my family. She didn’t ask me how I felt about that. She didn’t even asked about how I was enjoying being engaged. Um, hello, it’s nice to see you, too. I was a bit pissy that she barely even made an effort to even make some kind of conversation before she even looked at my ring. Dude, I’m a person that exists independently of my ring.

It got me thinking about engagement rings and why we as a society put so much stock in them. I understand the symbolism of the ring, of course. I know that it signifies an acceptance of a marriage proposal and life long commitment, but I definitely feel like perhaps there is a little too much emphasis on it. I wish sometimes I would get more congratulations and questions about how I’m feeling about becoming a wife than about my ring.

It upsets me when I read about women made to feel inferior or otherwise because they receive a diamond that’s too small or too big (or did not receive a diamond at all!) by others who choose to steal their joy about the ring instead of giving words of encouragement to them regarding this amazing new life event. I don’t think we should do away with engagement rings, and I think that they are important to some degree. By the way, I am not perfect. I have had my judgey moments about big rings… BUT I keep it hidden away in the back of my mind in the “Keep it to Yourself” folder!!!

Have you been in a situation where you felt uncomfortable about your engagement ring? I will get down off my soapbox now, but I’d be interested in hearing your opinions.