...as is the time taken to choose one!
Before the wedding comes the engagement, and with this comes the ring. Not just any ring, but THE ring. For most, this might be chosen with a mind to the 'C's, colour, clarity, cut, carats, and of course, cudget. However for THIS special ring another factor needed to be taken into account... conflict. Or rather, the lack thereof.
Personally, I don't think too much about where the things I buy come from. Food usually tastes the same regardless of how the the animals were cared for (or not), and everything else nowadays is made in China by human robots in mega-factory-cities. But apparently it matters greatly the conditions under which lumps of dense carbon are extracted from the rocks of the earth. That's fine, I say, as long as it doesn't cost ME the earth.
This factor somewhat curtailed my plan of picking something sparkly up off of eBay, (what? It'd still have been C12!) and instead appointments were made at an ethical jeweller in the heart of London. So, lots of time was spent trying to work out differences in stones that all looked totally transparent but according to the certificates varied greatly. Trying to get the diamonds into focus at 10x magnification was almost as difficult as finding those tiny flaws that, once seen, would continue to draw your eye to them (as a diamond's flaws too are forever). And then there was fluorescence, symmetry and other baffling science to consider.
Anyway, after two visits the diamond is chosen and design work can begin... So forever has only just started as the wire frames and renders and to-ing and fro-ing around the design now have to flow weekly via the emails... If we're lucky, The Engagement Ring may be ready before the wedding... Although I'm not certain it'll be the case. But it has given me an idea for a new Engagement Ring ordering Website for men like me.
It consists of a single page with a single slider which the G2B (wed-speak for Groom to be, apparently) manipulates from left to right indicating increasing budget/time. As the slider moves right, the number of desirable features of the ER would be listed below... with all the complex 'C's getting better as you move the slider right... Until you get to the right hand side, and you really have spent, as the adverts used to say, "a month's salary that lasts forever".
...oh, and Yes, "Conflict free" might finally appear once the slider is all the way to the right too, as would another 'C', as in Canada.
The penultimate 'C' would be a box for your Credit Card and the final 'C' a button marked 'Crikey!', which one pressed would charge you, and Fedex the perfect ring to your B2B. Cimples!
Anyway, as long as Julia is happy, then I must be happy. (I'm practising being married already!)
