How do I get the right size of wedding ring as a surprise for my fiancee?
I was proposed to with a ring that was too small (it is a family ring from his side) – he had it re-sized and it wasn’t a big deal. I was buying a ring for my sister and didn’t want her to know, so I brought a few rings (from the thrift store) – claiming that they were old ones of mine that I didn’t want and got her to try them on. Bought based on that, worked out fine.
Along with the warning about resizing an eternity band, you also have to watch resizing rings where stones are held in a compression mount. My wife’s ring has a few small diamonds on either side of the main diamond in this type of the mount. When I bought the ring, I was close on the size, but it had to be sized smaller. Come to find out that it was sized too small for the original specs on the ring, so we continually lose diamonds (one or two a year) from those now-weaker compression mounts. Luckily, we have the lifetime service plan on the ring with the jeweler (Jared), so they replace them for free. They’ve also offered to replace the entire ring with the same model, but one that’s made for her specific size so the compression mount works right.
Oh, chunking. Her mom/sister/girlfriend doesn’t ask her to go ring shopping, they ask her to go out [other thing] shopping that happens to be close to the jewelry store, then mom/sis/gf “remembers” something they want to see/ask at the jewelry store. From there, it’s an easy hop to trying on a couple of rings “for fun.” Meanwhile, most jewelry store salespeople (this is the side on which I’ve been) can spot the twinkle in mom/sis/gf’s eye or otherwise size up the situation and play along very cooperatively. Sure, it could get suspiciously pushy for mom/sis/gf to be all like NO IGNORE HER PROTESTS AND SIZE HER FINGERS NOW! But nice jewelry-store lady can get away with saying something hokey and chirpy like “oh, every woman should know her ring size!
