Mmmbop And Questions Popped Part One

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So we’re on to that second difficult blog.

After the ‘getting married’ part, the other most important moment is the actual proposal and engagement. As mentioned in my first blog, Jo and I have been together for five years, but if I wanted to take us to six years and beyond I knew it was time to get cracking and make an honest woman out of her.

I guess the serious thoughts about engagement began at the start of the year. One day at work out of the blue I received an e-mail from Jo’s sister. It began causally enough with how are you’s when in the second paragraph she asked about whether there might be an announcement soon. Now this made me start thinking, obviously I loved Jo and had thought a lot before about our future together but now it seemed a bit more real. My biggest concern/problem was the cost of the sparkler.

Tradition states that the engagement ring should be two months of the Grooms’ wage – however we don’t live in traditional times; we live in particularly tough times, but on the same hand I didn’t want to propose with a Diamonique special from QVC or God forbid, Elizabeth Duke. When I asked one of my friends who had recently gotten married how much his engagement ring had cost, his answer surprised me in a good way (obviously I cant say too much as the lady in question may be reading this). This made me feel relieved that I didn’t need to incur Greece’s debt to buy a nice engagement ring.

During our initial e-mails, Jo’s sister had sent me a link to a website showing me the type of ring she liked. Having previously believed there was only one type of diamond available I was soon to have my eyes opened to the different cuts, sizes and clarity of diamonds available – however, the ring that her sister had sent to me looked great. The Diamond Store http://www.thediamondstore.co.uk/ offer an extensive range of rings. Best of all, the rings are available on finance over varying time frames and the monthly payments are very reasonable – the more you can put down on the deposit the better the monthly payments.

Now to the biggest hurdle I was going to have to overcome in my grand scheme – finding out her ring size. Now unless you’re the most thorough boyfriend in the world the chances of your knowing her ring size are very small. If you’ve been with someone a long enough time and you suddenly ask what her ring size is out of the blue, then your plans would almost certainly be rumbled. The solution? Ask her friends and family to try and find out as subtly as possible. One quick call to two of Jo’s best friends and an evening of wine and Beyonce was arranged. The next morning I had her ring size .

So my advice to anyone reading this who is yet to buy the ring:

• Price – despite what people say it is not a contest to show how much money you have or to buy a diamond the size of the iceberg that sunk the titanic. In these tough times your girlfriend will be more than understanding if you cant buy the latest diamond from De Beers – it is the gesture and the symbol of your love and if she is disappointed then you might want to question a few things!
• Style – knowledge is power so say the Manic Street Preachers. Find out as much as you can from friends and family or if you feel brave enough and can be covert enough then ask your B2B. Hopefully if you can find out the type of style she likes this will help you out when shopping around.
• Ring size – this is the most crucial thing you will need to know and the advice for finding out the style also applies to finding out the ring size. Rings can be altered but life will be far easier if you get the ring size right first time round.

So I have the deposit in place, now to plan the actual proposal………

You can follow me and the next Mrs B on twitter @jimmy_boy81 and @blondiejo83 – we need the followers

Related Posts:

• Why I Bought A Bespoke Engagement Ring
• Too Much Prep?
• She Said Yes! (Part 1)
• One Ring To Rule Them Both
• Winning Proposals On Newbury Racecourse Lovers Bench