don't knock it till you try it: wedding rings

I recently saw this statement on a billboard, right next to an image of a big tacky wedding ring:

"It was easier picking out the guy."

Of course. Finding a dude to marry is fucking easy, the real decision-making comes when it's time to PICK OUT THAT ROCK!

I find the whole thing with wedding rings to be completely bewildering. An expensive, custom-designed ring seems like something that you might purchase if you were extremely wealthy--not something that your average working sap should be expected to buy.

Did you know that those things cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Well, they do. I know, because I went out shopping for them a few years ago. I was getting married, and I thought, "Well, there's usually an exchange of rings, right?" So I started to look around.

Someone referred me to a custom jeweler. I thought that sounded kind of cool. Not your average mass-marketed blood diamond, right?

But when I visited his shop, I quickly realized that everything there was going to cost thousands and thousands of dollars. "I guess I have very simple tastes," I said. "Can you show me some plain metal bands?"

He showed me some plain metal bands, the cheapest of which cost five hundred dollars.

Someone else told me to go to this "arty" jewelry store in the Minneapolis skyways. I don't remember exactly how she described it, but she made it sound like it was for people who were "too cool" for normal wedding rings. "That sounds like me!" I thought.

This time I went with Nick. But once again, it became immediately apparent that everything there was on sale for thousands and thousands of dollars. The clerk could tell that we weren't satisfied with the offerings on hand.

"We do custom designs, too," she said.

"Could we custom design something for less than three hundred dollars?" I asked.

"For your wedding?" she asked, her tone redolent of divorce.

After that, I lost all interest in the wedding ring task. "Who cares?" I thought. It seemed pointless to cough up loads of money for something that I was inevitably going to leave next to the sink at the Turf Club.

But even more than that, I was embarrassed by the idea of an expensive wedding ring. Even if we could afford it, would I really want that message projected to the outside world? "Look at me, a unique and special creature who has traded her maidenhead for this shiny symbol of possession!" No, I wouldn't want that, not at all.

So the day before the wedding, Nick and I were like, "Fuck--the rings." We went to an antique store where I tried on everything they could find in the cabinets, but virtually everything was too big. Finally, I came across a ring featuring a stone that can only be described as a "black teardrop." Of course, it fit perfectly! It was $24, but when we told the clerk it was for our wedding--which was the following day--she was so impressed that she gave it to us for half price.