How I chose an engagement ring

When I first started looking for a ring, I was looking at how much bang for my buck I could get in diamond sizes... which was totally the wrong way to go about it. Cam wouldn't want a big rock on an ugly ring -- it would get in the way and be a liability! Besides, the ring had to compliment her style and personality.

The trick that worked for me to better figure out what would best suit her was to talk to her friends. I ended up starting a group chat with a few of her closest gals to gather intel. Turns out that they regularly would share what kinds of jewelry / rings that they liked. In any case, they had a much better idea of where to start looking than I did.

For Cam, I knew that I wanted to get an environmentally friendly, conflict-free diamond. I thought I would go towards the lab-grown variety. However, her friends pointed me towards place like Fiat Lux, Anastassia Sel Jewelry, asrai garden, and Sofia Zakia. Not only do these jewelers only source ethical stones, they also fit Camille's style.

Here's a general overview of how ordering a ring went down.

• FiatLux was based in San Francisco and located a quick BART ride away from my office.
• Visited them for the first time w/ eve. This was early October.
• Met Georgie, who was awesome and would help me find the perfect ring.
• Narrowed down various styles of rings while outlining which type of stone to get.
• From a (much) earlier convo with Camille, I knew that she liked grey, imperfect diamonds.
• I said that I wanted a hexagonal stone, and a ring to match.
• Later, Georgie would find three stones; the middle one had the greatest color in the light.
• At thanksgiving without Camille, I couldn't keep in my excitement and blurted that I was ring shopping to my family. I showed them the options I had. My Aunti Rasmit said that I should go with the biggest stone.
• I went with my gut and chose the middle-sized stone that was elongated and had a beautiful shimmer. I also paired it with a Casia Vestra.
• Once I decided, it was time to wait. I ordered the ring around late November, with general plans to propose at the beginning of the new year.
• Turns out there is a holiday rush to make rings in time for end of year proposals! That's ok, by then, I changed my plans to pop the question before Valentines day. The ring should be ready by then, right?
• Turns out the holiday rush can quickly turn into the Valentines' day rush. There were fewer and fewer days in my 10-day period to pop the question, and the ring was still not ready. The weekend before our Valentines day trip was not available to me to have a spontaneous proposal, because Cam was enrolled in a wilderness medicine orientation and would be busy the whole time!
• The ring came, like, one week before my trip, on a Wednesday. It was just in time for me to propose the way I wanted to. I had the wiggle room of two days to propose.