Diamonds Aren't My Girl's Best Friend

After my previous post, one might wonder, "Why, oh Impending Groom, did you put up with the fact that this jewelry company failed to return your emails so many times? Why not simply go somewhere else? There are so many options for buying engagement rings, and many of them would have responded much more promptly!" Well, it wasn't just any engagement ring I wanted, and the reasons for that are tied to some of my own concerns and goals about the upcoming wedding. Which will help me give you an idea what this blog is about. It should also help give me an idea, which would be nice.

So first, what was up with the ring? My Betrothed and I share many interests, passions, and social concerns. For instance: we both believe diamonds are Bad. Many other people have gone into much more detail than I am capable of regarding the controversies surrounding diamonds:the violence they spark, the environmental impact they have, Leonardo DiCaprio's acting, potential applications in Supervilliany, and so forth. My Betrothed and I discussed the topic, discussed wading into the wealth of information that exists about whether we could get ethically sourced diamonds, discussed the possibility of lab created diamonds or diamond imitators, and came to one simple conclusion:

Emeralds are prettier.

There. I said it. Agents of De Beers may murder me in my sleep, but I said it. My Betrothed wanted an emerald as her center stone, so an emerald it would be. It would be lab created because mining anything, anywhere, is bad for the environment. And it would be set in recycled gold, because, well, this. And thus, my Quest was clear.

And that's why I put up with the slow email response time. GreenKarat, the jewelers I had chosen, shares many of our views on diamonds and gold, uses wind energy for producing their pieces, and even offers a carbon offset for the shipping and any other incidental energy use that may occur along the way. And after the initial communication issues, everything went smoothly. Between the time I confirmed my order and the time I got the custom ring, barely 2 weeks elapsed. And it was a thing of beauty.

The finished ring had an emerald flanked on either side by white sapphires, all set in 18 karat white gold. The stones were from the lab, the gold was post-consumer recycled, and the box that it came in was made of recycled paper that had been filled with wildflower seeds so it could be planted.

The invoice was on wildflower paper, too.

The invoice!

So the answer to the jeweler question is that I wanted the ring -- the symbol of our engagement -- to reflect our values and concerns. I want the wedding to do the same. I know that the usual advice for the groom-to-be is that he should get out of the way and let the Bride do her thing. And to a large extent, that's what I intend to do. But it's important to me to feel like I'm included. Which I can do by looking for ways to make the whole thing greener and more socially conscious. I don't want to get preachy, but I want to make my presence felt.

"Fool!" You say. "Do not meddle with the wishes of the Bride!" I don't intend to. But she refers to this as "our day." Not as hers. She even called it mine once.

In my next post I'll try to explain a little about why I feel the need to do more than simply smother her choice of floral arrangement with praise.

~G2B