Weddingbee Blog

Mr. Glasses and I are an unconventional couple in many ways. The way our relationship started and carried on is different than most. Likewise, the story of our engagement is rather… interesting. I don’t have an engagement ring, and I won’t have one, ever. While some might say that’s sad, it was my decision.

One night a couple weeks after my birthday in September of ’08, Mr. G had taken me to meet his coworkers. He was a little tipsy and kept telling them I was the girl he was going to marry as soon as he had a ring for me. I told him I didn’t need one over and over again. On the train ride back, he told me he would propose to me once he had a ring, and again, I told him I didn’t need one.

So he proposed. Right there in that empty train car heading home at 12:30 AM on a Saturday night. While I was eating a McDonald’s french fry.

Of course I said yes! I called my parents and told them we were getting hitched and cried happy tears all the way back (it was a pretty long train journey). I think, inevitably, if he hadn’t proposed that night, we would have decided to get married sooner or later. I had thought it out in my head even before he proposed—we were already living together, we weren’t going to be living in Japan forever, and if we wanted to stay together we’d have to get married to live in either of our home countries. And why not? It was basically love at first sight with us, we were inseparable after the first night we met, we never fought, and everything has always been happy.

So why did I tell Mr. G I didn’t need a ring? Well, for one, I am concerned about the diamond being ethically mined. When we go to buy our wedding rings, I want to know exactly where the diamond (or jewel—I’ve been looking at some lovely ones) is coming from.

I’m also not a jewelry girl; I never even wear accessories like bracelets or necklaces. One reason for that is I basically can’t have nice things because I don’t know how to take care of them! I lose, break, and dirty things all the time, and an engagement ring would be no different, especially because it’s something I would have worn everyday!

Lastly, I knew we would have bigger fish to fry in terms of where our money needed to go. Despite being a klutz, I’m a very practical person and I realized from the start that the visa process would be expensive and that moving back to the U.S. would be tough because we wouldn’t have jobs right away. I’d rather be secure in knowing we have money to fall back on than have a ring on my finger. That’s what not having a ring means to me.

Initially, it caused a lot of people to not take us seriously. People only really started taking us seriously when we went to visit Mr G’s parents in England this past Christmas. I guess, in their minds, it solidified that we were making a big commitment to be a part of each others lives. When I told people I was engaged and they’d ask to see the ring, I could almost see the looks of disappointment on their faces when I told them there wasn’t one. No one at my office ever thought of me as engaged, even though we have been for almost two years. It was frustrating and depressing, but it’s done.

So I don’t have any bling to show you until we purchase our wedding rings, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Any other ringless engaged folks out there? What has your experience been like? For those with rings, have you had any close calls with losing it or damaging it?