Weddingbee Blog

*SPOILER ALERT* You’ll never see this one coming, but we did get engaged! Mr. Porcupine proposed a few weeks into the jittery madness that overtook our home. That’s a short, presh story for another day.

Personal Photo / My side job in life is making horrible, unflattering facial expressions.

Let’s rewind back to the bachelorette-party weekend. Even though I was unsure of what was going on down in his hometown, Mr. Porcupine was indeed ring shopping with his dad. We had texted and chatted sporadically throughout the weekend, and he had made up a slew of events that he and his dad were partaking in (including going to Wegmans, which I remember because I freakin’-A love Wegmans and wish we had one in NYC). He was completely believable, and I had no concept of how he would have had time in between all this stuff to ring shop. I had completely deleted the possibility from my mind.

In reality Mr. Porcupine, ever the planner and researcher, was learning all about the three Cs (cut, clarity, carat). He had been doing tons of online research for months, and decided to check out his family friend’s jewelry shop while in town. Mr. Porcupine wasn’t really liking with what he saw. Although he found a diamond he liked, he didn’t like any of the bands they had presented him with. He knew I wanted a thin diamond band, and he was on a mission to find it. After some deliberation, they let him TAKE the diamond to another jeweler to see it on some other band options (which they didn’t offer at their shop). After leaving behind some pertinent credit card info, in case of accidentally losing it, they were off to Smyth Jewelers in Baltimore, 45 minutes away. I was shocked when he told me this. This is the guy whose passport I hold on vacations because he is afraid of losing it! The guy who checks his pockets 10 times to make sure his wallet is there! He was strolling along with a diamond! What in the…

At Smyth he says he liked the selection a lot better. When comparing the diamond he had brought with him with a comparably priced one from Smyth, he decided he would buy everything from there (band AND diamond). With the jeweler’s help he picked out the band and diamond and placed an order right there and then. After returning the other diamond, he went home and continued over the next weeks to email about specifics of the ring as it was welded, created, or whatever it is you do to make a ring. My ring knowledge still remains at “Oooh sparkly. Oooh shiny.”

The kicker…they MAILED the ring via UPS to Mr. Porcupine since he had no time to go back to Baltimore. Being afraid I might somehow intercept this box, or notice the UPS slip when they missed us while we were at work, the ring was delivered straight to our nearby UPS pick-up office. I can not believe JEWELS were sent in the mail. Maybe this is more common then I know, but something about this screamed JEWEL HEIST when he told me. No wonder he was so jittery—diamonds were going through the parcel service! The same parcel service that loses 2,309 packages when I mail stuff at work. (OK, that’s a lie, but I have lost many a package in the mail!) And to make matters more cumbersome, the ring was delivered the day before my college roommate’s wedding, and Mr. Porcupine was working long hours. At one point he asked a friend of ours (in town for the wedding) if she could pick up the ring at the UPS store. She was all “HELLZ NO! I do not want that responsibility.” All in all, it was unnecessary for her to get it and he was able to pick it up just fine and dandy.

So of course the normal thing to do is for him to get the ring, stash it at WORK (I still find this bizarre), tell all our friends he is in possession of it, and text pics of it to said friends. He also had to make it through my college roomie’s wedding knowing he would propose the next weekend. He told me that once he had it he wanted to do it right away and get it over with. But, he didn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder.

Did your fiance go about getting your ring in an unusual way?