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.