Wedding Planning Chapter 10 – We Bought Our Wedding Bands! ^.^

Sunshine had been wanting to buy our wedding bands since months ago but as our wedding would be in Oct this year, I felt that there was no rush. We could buy our rings in April and still have a six months buffer. However, on some random day, we somehow decided that we wanted to buy it soon, after Chinese New Year. Hence, Sunshine made an appointment to visit JannPaul (JP) on 19 Feb 2017, a year+ after we first stepped into JP. (JP was our only choice because we know that we could get high quality diamonds at a value-for-money price. I am still very contented and pleased with my ring, which still sparkles like crazy, especially whenever I step into the lift at my place. Haha. We also learnt that returning customers get a discount off their wedding bands if they had also bought their engagement ring there. Hence, it did not cross our minds to visit another jeweller at all).

We were shown to a seat in front of cabinets of wedding bands after we informed one of the staff about our appointment with Jullie. Jullie came quickly with a cheery smile just as before. Haha. After congratulating us heartily on our engagement, she asked Sunshine if she could serve me first. I guess this was because there are more designs for the ladies and guys’ rings would usually match the ladies after that. I told her I wanted my wedding band to match my engagement ring. She first brought out one tray and had me try on seemingly random rings to try to meet my request. After selecting one or two rings with white and rose golds, she paused and switched to passing me rings with pure white gold only. I was quite relieved (?) as I was a little hesitant about having a wedding band with two colours. My worry was, with my engagement ring of a mixture of white and rose gold, a wedding band with similar colours might be too “over”. However, I was open to any options as who knows, the rings might still complement each other very well and this is what I wanted! =D

I shortlisted a few rings from those that Jullie recommended: twisted band, plain half-eternity, heart-shaped/V-shaped, with infinity signs as part of the design and their few variations. All of them look so stunning! I had a hard time choosing my favourite and Sunshine was not really helping. He said they all looked very pretty and he wanted me to choose something I like since I would be the one wearing it for the rest of my life… *shy* Haha.

After trying each of them a few times (numerous times for some and none for others), I eliminated the twisted band because, as much as I like the design, I once again thought that it might be too similar to my engagement ring. It was my first love though, out of the many rings which I had tried on. However, it turned out that Sunshine did not really like the design. He felt that the part of the band without the diamonds looked quite empty. He previously showed me a half-eternity band he saw on his colleague’s hand which he thought was quite simple yet pretty. However, I think this design is very common! I had personally seen quite a number of my friends and other random people posting with such rings online. In fact, one of my colleagues also wears a half-eternity ring as her wedding band. Hence, it was a relatively much easier choice to make in rejecting this design. In fact, I rejected rings of this design quite early on. Moving on….

I had knew very early on that V-shaped rings would complement my engagement ring and any other rings with claws set in the NSEW-direction very well when I searched for ideas for my wedding band (see more about setting of a ring here). The only peeve I had was I felt that these V-shaped rings are not complete circles (or rings). To me, a complete ring signifies “completeness” or 圆满, which has a blissful connotation *blissful smile*. Hence, I had told myself earlier on that I would not really want a ring of this shape. However, as expected, Jullie offered these type of rings to me because they really match very well! Instead of telling her I do not want it upfront as per my usual style so as to save both my time and the salesperson’s time, I was momentarily surprised when Jullie introduced the rings. A bulb just lighted *ting!* when I heard her describe the ring as heart-shaped! OHHHH!!! That was a new way of looking at things… I looked at that tray of rings and for the first time, realised that they looked heart-shaped as well! This new perspective made me see this type of rings in a different light and I was able to convince (not much convincing to do actually) myself that “Hey! This might be a great type after all!” Haha. I really liked that rings of this kind really flushes very well with my engagement ring! Jullie offered a few variations of these rings but I still preferred the one she first showed to me and I kept it for later consideration.

As I was still undecided (I was contemplating about the twisted band also), Jullie showed me more rings. One of them was with the infinity design. I sort of eliminated it because there are gaps in the infinity signs (duh!) and my concern was that it might trap dust and be very dirty. However, this ring looked really very pretty be it when worn on its own or together with my engagement ring. <333 Jullie reassured me that dust would not be trapped in those gaps and I realised that my engagement ring, which had quite a number of gaps as well, did not trap any dust at all! Plus point! I turned to Sunshine for help but he did not offer much. Lol. By this time, Jullie had brought out some rings for Sunshine to try while I was busy making my own choice of wedding band. As I was really trying to concentrate on choosing my band, I did not pay attention to whatever he was served. After some time, when I was more or less undecided between the heart-shaped ring and the one with the infinity signs, Sunshine finally chipped in. He felt that the heart-shaped ring looked weird (?) but agreed with me that the ring with a number of infinity signs looked very pretty! The only concern left was that, unlike the heart-shaped ring, there was no rim around the diamonds for the infinity signs and I was worried that it might not be suitable for daily wear. Who knows all my small diamonds (or melee diamonds as they as known) might drop after a few knocks here and there. Jullie immediately reassured me that though these diamonds are only held by small claws, they are very sturdy and so far, none of their diamonds had dropped out before. She further guaranteed that I could return to their shop if any of the diamonds drop off and they would replace it. I forgot if it would be for free or not though, but I remembered being reassured. After confirming and re-confirming with Sunshine that the infinity signs was better, I had made up my mind! Settled!

When I turned my attention to Sunshine, I realised that he had already shortlisted and rejected a few rings: twisted, two-coloured and simple, in matt and/or glossy finishing. I asked Jullie about the pros and cons of matt and glossy finishes so she explained that while most guys choose matt finishing as it is fingerprint-proof and looks better, glossy finishing is more scratch-resistant. As I had already decided my ring then, Jullie then recommended the one she felt was most compatible to mine to Sunshine. I thought the band was quite thin and when paired together with Sunshine’s long and thin fingers, it just looked a tiny bit feminine. Lol. I asked him to consider one with a thicker band but after trying one, he felt that he still preferred the thinner band. His reasoning was that a thinner band would be less obstructive during work and more suitable for daily life. He revealed that he was not going to remove it once he wears it, even during showering. When I heard it, I was stunned: “Huh?? You’re not going to take it off even during showering? -.- Oh well. Then you better wear it for the rest of your life”. =D The ring he chose had little little dots to match my ring. I thought it was simple yet very timeless.

I then asked Jullie about the prices. This was something which had been bothering me ever since she brought out the first ring for me to try: the price of the wedding bands! I noticed that all the bands were more than $4000 a piece! *jaw drop!* However, as I remembered reading online that other people spent about $1-2k for their bands, I refuse to believe that the prices written on the tags were accurate. I was right! Jullie shared that a lot of their customers also mistook the numbers on the tags to be the prices (The tags all had a $ on it) but they are actually their own notes (serial numbers?) for the bands. Lol. Scary sia. If my wedding band really costs $5k+ as written, I would buy our bands from elsewhere. Lol. As mentioned when we got our engagement ring, returning customers get a discount for their wedding bands and Jullie gave us a good price for our bands! She then showed us a wedding pillow which would be given with the purchase of their wedding bands and suggested the different ways in which we could showcase our rings on our ROM. Interesting. I then tried to take some pictures for memories sake. When Jullie noticed it, she gladly offered me more things to photograph and help to arrange the “setting”. Feeling paiseh or embarrased, I tried to take the photos as quickly as possible as she had to stop her work to accommodate me. However, the reflective glass and the bright shop did not allow me to take pretty pictures. =( Jullie noted that my engagement ring was a little dirty and she voluntarily offered to clean my ring for me ^.^ Jullie then measured our ring size and informed us that our wedding bands would be ready in 2-3months’ time. Sunshine then enquired if they could be ready before our photoshoot in end-Apr. Upon hearing that, she promised that our wedding bands would be ready by early-mid Apr in case there are any changes to be made. Omg! Wow! I had initially not harboured any hopes of taking our photoshoot with our wedding bands as there is just so little time left. Thus, this was really a great piece of news! After paying a deposit, we left as satisfied customers!

(P.S. We noted that we took 1hr this time round instead of hours the last time. Haha! Later that night, Sunshine revealed that he chose what he chose for my wedding band because the infinity signs reminded him of a necklace he bought for me. He thought that it matches my necklace very well. When I checked my necklace at night, I saw that my necklace and the ring really matched! In fact, they looked like they are part of the same series! =D *happy!*)

Read about my gown selection in Wedding Planning Chapter 9 – Our Gown Selection! here.
Read Wedding Planning Chapter 11 – Our Casual Photoshoot here.