He proposed!

Okay, I know this is not going to be a big shock, after all this is a blog about planning our wedding. Heath and I went ring shopping several times in the late fall. We went to several different places including Jareds, Bailey's Fine Jewelry, Diamonds Direct Crabtree.com , and many other small jewelry stores. I have always known that I wanted a canary diamond engagement ring, so Heath had his work cut out for him. Not knowing anything about canary diamonds, Heath wanted me to tag along.

Our experience at Bailey's was a very positive experience, however their selection of canary diamonds was very limited. They had about three canary diamond rings in the store and only one of them would work as a traditional engagement ring. It was a beautiful ring, but it had the matching $22,000 price tag to go with it. No matter how much I adored that ring, there was no way Heath could afford it, nor would I want a ring that cost that much.

Our experience at Jared was not so positive. While I had the opportunity to design the ring I wanted, working with the salesperson did not go so well. It took many phone calls just to get simple questions answered that Heath finally gave up.

Our first visit to Diamonds Direct left with us leaving after waiting about 45 minutes to speak with a sales person. We did not have enough patience to endure waiting any longer. However, we did look at their rather large collection of canary diamonds while waiting and after several other trips to stores with only one or two canary diamonds per store, we went back to Diamonds Direct. The first salesperson we encountered was very pushy and kept telling me what I would like instead of asking me what I would like. Heath and I left, feeling very discouraged. This store got raving reviews from our friends, but we thought it was not the place for us. After several trips to other jewelry stores and the failure of Jared to return calls in a promptly manner, we returned to Diamonds Direct. This time we were paired with a very nice saleswoman and she listened to what I wanted. We were able to design a ring I wanted and stay within Heath's budget. It took a little longer to design that they had told Heath, but it was worth the wait.

So that was the story of the ring. Now for the story of the proposal. Heath surprised me by driving me to the Outer Banks for the day. He chartered a 55 foot sailboat out of Manteo and asked me to marry him during the cruise. We then went to the aquarium at Roanoke. It was a fabulous day.