Hey folks! This is Dave, I'm part of this whole thing too. Natalie has done a great job documenting the first few weeks of our engagement and she told the engagement story quite well. I'll fill you in on a few details...sorry this might be long.
First of all, I've known since the summer of 2007, just after our time in London, that Natalie was the girl I was going to marry, it was just a matter of time. By the way, it took me about 6 more months after this to convince her it was a good idea to be an "official" couple. So, needless to say I had been thinking about asking Nat to marry me for quite some time. This past fall is when plans really started heating up. I secretly began having conversations with our friends Karen and Adam about my plan and where to get a ring. They both strongly suggested I visit Jewel's By Justin, the same place Adam got Karen's engagement ring. So, one day this past October I drove the 30 minutes to Yorba Linda to meet with Justin the jeweler. However, I did not realize that Justin had recently moved his store to a new location and all I found was a closed shop. I drove home dejected and made sure to verify the address for my next visit. On the second attempt however, I did not call first to make an appointment and the store was closed for the day! I was devastated, but I took it as a sign from God that maybe the time wasn't quite right. I was definitely disappointed though because I had wanted to have the ring by the time I went home to MN for Christmas so that I could propose to Natalie while we were there. I talked again with Karen and Adam about my dilemma and realized that a better time to propose would be on Natalie's and my 3 year anniversary on February 15th. So I waited a number of weeks and kept praying for guidance and to be right with God's timing. As December rolled around, I made plans to try again to meet with Justin. I called and set up a meeting on December 16th in the afternoon. Another setback. Justin was stuck in traffic and was unable to meet with me...ahhhhh! I started doubting whether it was really the right time to get engaged or not. Justin and I set up another appointment for the next day, December 17, the day before I was leaving for MN. After meeting with Justin that day all of my fears, and discouragement were gone. Justin is one of the neatest most down to earth people I've ever met and he is an amazing artist and jewelry designer. Coincidentally, he also went on the same study abroad trip that Natalie and I met on, only a few years earlier than us. We talked for more than an hour about Natalie's and my relationship, why I wanted to marry her and what I wanted the ring to look like. Justin makes a point to really get to know his clients and their stories so that each piece of jewelry he creates is unique and special for each occasion. I left Justin's studio and the next day I left California with plans to have an engagement ring by February! Crazy!!
When I got back to CA after the holidays, I met up with Justin to make some decisions on ring details, like the type of metal to use, details about the diamond and so on. One unique detail about the ring was that the band was going to be engraved. Don't worry, Natalie had shown me rings she liked. At our first meeting back in December, Justin had me talk out a design for the engraving. I settled on a wave design and as I was talking and explaining my thoughts about waves and their significance in Natalie's and my relationship, Justin was sketching out a design. As I finished explaining myself I took a look at what he had drawn and immediately knew that it was perfect! So, it was now the second week of January and the ring creation process was in full swing. The next six weeks ended up being nerve wracking but also very exciting as I really didn't know what the ring would end up looking like and even Justin admitted that he'd never really made a ring like this before. February 12 rolled around and the ring was finished, so I went to pick it up. As the ring was unwrapped from some tissue paper, I saw immediately that it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined! It was absolutely perfect! I was so excited, I just wanted to give it to Natalie right away and not wait for the next 3 days to pass. Justin and his team did an incredible job on the ring and my experience with them was better than I could have asked for. I'll stop there for now as I'm sure you're tired from reading my rants, maybe you didn't even make it this far and quit reading some time ago, anywho, thanks for taking the time if you did. Keep checking back!!
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