Things we've bought

The One Ring…

In all the excitement of getting the blog looking and working great, it’s easy to forget the real reason we made this page! So getting back on track, I wanted to show Cat’s engagement ring, and how we got it.

After buying our commitment rings in Lisbon last year, we decided to buy an engagement ring there too. They seem to have a better choice (English high street stores all seem to sell the same products), and the prices are slightly better as well. We first visited Rua do Ouro (Gold Street) which is obviously the place to start when looking for a gold ring.

We were looking for a solitaire diamond ring, in white gold (which I prefer over yellow gold every time) and have a low set diamond (most rings have a huge mount the stone sits on - probably to make the small diamond seem much bigger). Oh and all this for less than a king’s ransom.

The second shop we looked in had a fantastic ring that seemed to fit all our requirements, it even perfectly fit Cat’s ridiculously small fingers. Sadly it was over our budget. Plus having nothing else to compare it to, we sadly had to move on.

After looking in dozens of other stores, all comparisons came back to that first special ring. We agreed that every one we saw after that was always having to live up to the first one. To make sure we weren’t making it out to be something amazing when it wasn’t, we went back to the shop and looked again. It was still the best ring we’d seen. It was still very expensive.

We gave up for the day. The next day, after plenty of web research about diamonds (carat, cut, clarity and colour) we had a host of questions to ask the shop. Two phone calls later (over 2 days) and there was no contest. Screw bankruptcy, this was the ring we would always want!!

So off we went back to the store (we were up early that morning!) and asked to see it one last time. Cat handed over her plastic, and after a short scary wait wondering if being a foreign card was going to cause a problem, the magic machine stole all our money, and we were one diamond ring richer.

It’s the best ring I’ve seen (can’t get over the habit of looking at rings when we walk through town) and every penny is worth it. It’s so shiny and pretty!!

© 2008 The Wedding.