Three Year Anniversary!

Stéphanie and I had our three year anniversary today! On January 16th 2004 we went out together for the first time. We went to see Mystic River (the first time out of many that we went to the movies) and so that date has become our anniversary date.

I had told Stéphanie that I would take the day off and that we should go downtown to do some shopping… but I hadn’t told her that I wanted to shop for rings with her, engagement rings! :-) Yes, this is it — I’ve asked Stéphanie to marry me and she said yes!!

Our favorite design looked very similar to this one... We visited five shops and got somewhat disappointing service in all but the first: the shop assistant in Hingelberg really knew what she was doing and spend a lot of time educating us about the sizes, heights, widths, and shapes of the rings. I had never been wearing rings, so I more or less thought that a ring was a ring… But no, there were a lot of little things that the shop assistant could tell us that we never would have seen ourselves, such that we both need rings with a bit of rising on the side since none of us have particular wide knuckles compared to the width of the fingers… How would we have known that? :-)

We spend quite some time discussing the color of the gold — we both want a golden ring. There’s the “normal” yellow color, but we could also get a pink or rose color. To better see the color difference she urged us to take two rings and go outside to judge them in the natural light… we could easily have run away :-)

In the shop I felt like what I would expect to feel if I went to a tailor: the assistant seemed competent and knew what looked good and what didn’t. It was a bit strange but also very encouraging to hear the shop assistant and her manager quickly decide that this or that ring was correct and that this or that was wrong for me. And more importantly, it made sense when they explained to me why this or that ring was good or bad :-)

After having figured out the dimensions for our rings she wrote it all down on a card and said that we could now think a bit about it and see what kind of collections we would find in other shops around town. Somewhat strange idea I thought, but very customer friendly. But maybe she knew what the other shops had to offer…

These are apparently very popular at the moment... Because, after the first shop it went downhill: the other shops had an ugly two-color design and some plain rings from loveDsign. The shop assistants simply pulled out a box with rings, ordered by kind of profile and width. I guess there were 6 rows and 10 columns, making for some 60 sets of rings. The assistant apparently expected us to pick a set just like that. That might seem simple, but after coming from a shop where we got a throughout guidance it seemed like very poor customer service to simply present the rings and then say nothing further.

After having been to four shops and been disappointed every time we got rather tired of those mass-produced rings and the presentation of them. Sure, they are cheaper than the hand-made rings from Hingelberg, but it was like looking at a Fiat after looking at a Ferrari… The Hingelberg set with 18 carat was twice as expensive as the other rings with 14 carat. Both sets were expensive, but I think it is acceptable considering that we plan to use the engagement rings as our wedding rings too, and thus use them the rest of our lives.

Finally we went shopping for shoes — Stéphanie’s favorite shopping item :-) and had dinner at Raadhuus Kaféen which is a very cozy restaurant with good traditional Danish food. This was a super day!

16 Comments

  1. Thomas:

    Wow! Congratulations, I am quite speechless :)

  2. Stéphanie:

    You speechless - wow! We’re so proud! :)

  3. Sam:

    Martin and Stephanie, congrats - seems like you had a big day and you will have an even bigger day very soon!! I’m happy for you two guys and wish you all the best luck!

  4. Kristian Kristensen:

    Ja, jeg tager den lige på dansk. Tillykke :-) Super godt gået. Det har joda godt nok luret lidt i kulissen, men alligevel.
    Men tillykke og alt det bedste til jer to.

  5. Janus:

    Wow! Congratulations Stephanié and Martin. Sounds like picking up a ring is slightly more complicated than designing secure has algorithms - but glad you were able to come through. I will keep your advice in mind when my time for engagement is up.

  6. Janus:

    s/Ste/Sté/,s/nié/nie/

  7. Chris:

    I hans aigentli nit so richtig mitkriagt, aber miar ischs xi dass hüt öppis mit Kuacha im Kaffigruum abganga isch, aber noch dem Poscht isch d Sach jetz klar. Herzlichi Gratulation au vu minara Sita!!

  8. Martin Geisler:

    Merci villmal, Chris! :-) I’m sorry I didn’t organize it better, the idea of coke and cake appeared around lunch-time, and I sent out proper ocal invitations to the people from Turing-0… I’ll try to do better next time :-)

  9. Martin Geisler:

    @Janus: Thanks, I will forward to your engagement :-)

    And don’t feel bad about the position of the accent — most Danes forget it, or use è instead (we have that on our door sign :-)

  10. Henning:

    Hey Martin and Stéphanie,
    congratulations. But wait, you just started going out… for — what, three years ago… Oh, times flies by. It will be amazing. Enjoy.

  11. Ole Laursen:

    Just stopped by. Congratulations!

  12. Martin Geisler:

    Thank you Ole and Henning! It’s really cool to hear from so many old friends…

  13. amix:

    Congratulations!

    In movies (and books) it is quite normal that one gives the ring while proposing (i.e. one buys a ring up-front).
    But I guess that reality is a bit more complex than movies :D

  14. Nepto:

    Wow! I was just surfing around and find this great news!

    My CONGRATULATIONS!

    And do not forget to publish some photos after event is done :)

    Btw. this is similar note like I sent you, but I did not know that website has a discussion binded to every article ;-)

    Take care

    Nepto

  15. Martin Geisler:

    Thanks Amir! The thing about when to buy a ring was confusing me a lot until I talked with a sales person who told me that it was quite common for the couple to choose the ring together. To me that seems like a much more reasonable way to do it.

    Thanks Ondrej for stopping by — I’ll of course make sure that lots of photos are taken and put them online afterwards.

    I just took at look at your side and glad to see you’re still running PHP Weather on it. I haven’t used it or looked at the code for ages. So seeing your name in my mailbox was quite cool.

  16. Doug:

    Here is a little tip when buying rings with diamonds (also other jewels). Price is based on the 4 “C”’s:
    - Carot: how big the diamond is (which is measured in carots)
    - Colour: the colour of the diamonds. Not all diamonds are white; the most precious is blue
    - Clarity: diamonds are not absolutely uniform, but have various amounts of internal defects that affect light and appearance. In high quality ones, this is minimal. The defects are measured in terms of “clarity”.
    - Cut: diamonds can be cut in many different shapes. This is partly determined by fashion (certain cuts go in and out of fashion), as well as the size and shape of the diamond. A cut that is in fashion and which reflects light well (producing sparkles) is worth more.

    So, contrary to popular belief that size is the key determinant of value/cost, it is just one of the 4 Cs.

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