On Being Engaged - And My Lab-Grown Ring!

We've been fiances (fiancees?) for over 6 months now and since neither of us care about a lot of the traditional wedding stuff we've been enjoying it. We toured a few different venues, picked one, had a food tasting, continued tasting the leftovers for a couple of days, met with our DJ, and super casually picked our photographer (which basically involved The Fiance accepting an offer from a colleague since she knows us). Meanwhile I tried on some dresses and have been saving rings on Etsy. Our dessert will be cookies, the centerpieces will probably be photos from our travels and favors will be planted succulents in jars I've been saving pretty much since we started living together. And I think that's it! I'll pick up some flowers from our neighborhood farmer's market the day before and us ladies will make our own bouquets.

It has taken up a lot of my mental energy, though. I'm glad we waited until I was done with school. Grad school also took up so much of my mental energy - when I was at work I often thought and stressed about my paper and sometimes had to just work on my paper for an hour so that I could get back to being productive at my job. There wouldn't have been enough small moments in my days to think about work and school and wedding stuff.

Two of my colleagues are also getting married in the near future and we recently chatted about the changes that come with going from girlfriend to fiance. An older (male) colleague said he and his wife were surprised at feeling different after getting married - something the three of us were equally surprised to hear, as we all hope nothing changes. But we did agree that being engaged sparked a stronger feeling of partnership and togetherness, which The Fiance and I have definitely felt (though it's hard to decide if our pup's cancer diagnosis didn't contribute more to that).

One thing that's been difficult to get used to is calling each other fiance (fiancee?). I've been calling my significant other "boyfriend" for 17 years, 8 of those were him. Breaking that automatic response is taking some time, even though I haven't felt that "boyfriend" really encompassed what we are for a while. At the same time I'm not a huge fan of the word "fiance". I'm finally starting to come around to the idea of having a husband, though wife still sounds awful. I wish we could use partner and have it mean the same thing, but then I wish a lot of things about how our society does marriage (like the trend of men proposing at significant moment in a woman's life, like her graduation or after winning a goddamn Olympic medal... way to minimize her years of hard work and shift the focus from celebrating her intellectual or physical achievement to celebrating the achievement of finding a man).

Our "we're engaged!" pic for the non-locals.

My lab-grown ring:

For years I would feel this twinge of jealousy any time I saw an engagement or wedding ring. They were broadcasting that they had their person. I had my person, we just hadn't legalized anything so it didn't have that outward permanence. Being engaged is like telling the world the things we've told each other for a long time. It's not someday or maybe anymore, now it's tangible.

Poor, wonderful Fiance was apparently quite concerned with getting a ring that was pretty and something I'd like to wear after so many years of commenting on people's ugly ass engagement rings. To be fair, some of them are super gaudy. I like very simple jewelry. When I finally saw the ring after he proposed it was lovely... but it was a diamond. The only thing I was sure that I wanted for my engagement ring was a lab-grown gemstone. Or no gem! Apparently he looked for a lab-grown diamond ring that wasn't hideous or a million dollars with no luck. While I felt bad rejecting the ring after the proposal didn't go as he planned, I just couldn't have a mined diamond. He wanted me to have a ring I loved wearing and a diamond just wasn't it.

*Note: I researched diamond mining practices and learned that the checks and balances that are supposedly in place are mostly talk. Legally, any diamond sold in the US must be conflict-free, but  diamonds are shipped to several different countries during processing, often mixing in blood-diamonds along the way. It's nearly impossible to trace any one diamond to its source and therefore verify that particular diamond is truly conflict-free. Plus, there's no such thing as environmentally-friendly mining, so that was a definite no for me. Lab grown all the way.

Fortunately, I found the same exact style on Etsy with a Moissanite diamond. The jeweler used Moissanite in the side stones, too, and (I think) recycled gold for the band. My ring could not be more me and I sometimes get distracted staring at it. Even better? It was half the price of the ring The Fiance originally bought (which he returned for a full refund) and has a bigger, clearer, and more sparkly diamond. We also supported a small, woman-owned business rather than a big box store. I love it. It still comes with a lifetime warranty and certification card for the stones and thanks to the modifications it's far less likely that I'll see the same ring on anyone else's hand.

Now I just can't wait to see The Fiance with his ring - that will be the big change. I imagine gushing over that even more than I do my engagement ring.