Shane CoI’m 28 years old, newly engaged, and finally taking my first breath of air in 4 months (my engagement planning period). Or so I thought, until I realized that proposing to your girlfriend means, in our case, 12 months of immediate wedding planning (our engagement period). I’m not quite sure how I didn’t realize that before I proposed, but it’s a good thing I didn’t at the time, or the proposal may never have happened.
My fiancée (still sounds weird) and I have been “official” for only 200 hours or so and she has, I mean we have, already started planning for our wedding. Time for me to look back at how this whole thing started in my first couple of blogs until I get to the pandemonium which is present day…
Let me try to set the stage for you. Here I am, a guy who must have sold nearly 1,000 engagement rings in my still relatively young life, but now it’s finally time to buy one for myself. Well technically it’s for my girlfriend of course, but the angst and thought process all belongs to me, as she has no idea when, where, or how a proposal will come. Throughout the dozen or so years, on-and-off, when I’ve been “behind the showcase”, I have been full of confidence. Confident in our product quality, the value our company provides to the sometimes lost souls I see in front of me, confident in our free lifetime warranty, and overall confident that what I’m trying to sell, or what the man across from me is here to buy, will provide him with the best solution to his need. He needs a ring, and I have the confidence of knowing that he can’t find a better quality ring for a better price elsewhere.
Where is all that confidence now? I have no idea…
Most people think that I would have the easiest time in the world buying an engagement ring. In fact, until recently I thought the same thing myself. I’m surrounded with them every day of my life, I already have all the knowledge in the world to purchase a ring, and nothing could be easier, right? Wrong. Turns out it’s just the opposite. Furthermore, to make it even more difficult for me, my element of surprise is totally hampered by the fact that my girlfriend, I mean my fiancée, works for our company, as a buyer of rings, about 35 feet down the hall from me.
So beyond buying an engagement ring, a complex enough task for most men, I now must play double agent as well.
It’s a good thing I had a diamond buying trip to Israel already planned…
