Pre-Reqs to "Yes!"

On to the sparkly stuff!

Now as you may have read in my pre-proposal post, fiance initially proposed lacking two very important things by American standards,

1. Permission from my parents
2. Shiny marriage bribery (you know, to convince us pretty ladies to give up the 'single ladies' dance) 

Anyway, after that first initial oops, my knight in shining armor circled around for a second charge prepared! He liked to tease me all throughout the year that followed by ducking in to my childhood home to 'help move furniture' or 'just to check in'. He practically drove me crazy with curiosity several times. Of course, my parents adore him as much as I do, and he needn't have been worried about their blessing. When he finally did ask, I called my mother practically beside myself with happiness. She is completely amazing, because she made sure to remember every detail of his nervous request and relayed it to me later that night!

When it came to the ring, he did the perfect thing. I was torn between wanting it to be a complete surprise, and wanting to pick it myself. Lets face it, I had been creeping the Zales website for months now, even going as far as to put bookmarks titled 'HINT" on his desktop. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted....or so I thought. Mr. Manatee decided one day we should just 'drop by' Zales (in a completely casual voice) during a normal trip to the mall, and I did my best to keep my shit together. The sales lady sat me in front of a long, eye-popping case of diamond rings and asked me to pick a few to try on. Luckily for fiance, I've never been a fan of huge, Texas sized diamond monsters, the kind all my single friends like to Pin on Pinterest. I wanted something simple, white gold, and didnt 'stick up' too high on my finger (is there a term for that?). Since I also have 'piano fingers', which is a nice term for 'big hands', I also wanted something with a slightly thicker band. When I said 'nothing over a carat', the lady looked at me like I had two heads. Nevertheless. Despite my diamond-high, I eventually narrowed it down to three contenders.

 I liked the three stone because, well, that's what my mother had. It was classic and traditional, but it wasn't exactly making my heart stop. The round cut (top left) had been a favorite for a while, and it was actually the first to show up on the desktop. The cushion cut ring is not the exact ring they had at Zales, as I was never actually able to find it on the website. The one pictured is probably a little prettier/bigger than the one I tried on in the store. He requested I pick 3 for the most suspense, but in my mind it was a tie between the round and the cushion cut. The cushion cut was obviously gorgeous and trendy, but I couldn't stop thinking about the uniqueness of the round cut. At this point the sales lady got kind of bitchy and kept asking me to pick one already, obviously missing the point of the exercise. Manatee asked me to make myself scarce, and I flounced out of there unable to believe it was actually happening. After wandering around Forever 21 for twenty minutes so anxious I couldn't even find anything I liked (a first), he called to say it was all done. And there he was waiting for me outside the store, holding that beautiful grey bag and I'm looking at it like....

And I'm on cloud 9 all the way home because it's actually happening, until he starts teasing me that he actually just bought a really nice watch for his dad. This sends me into such a state of despair that he's serious that he has to show me a little peek of the outside of the little square box before I am calm. I had to patiently (yeah right) wait another week to find out what was inside that box, but it was so worth it!

Which one is your favorite? Did you help pick your ring?