I DO NOT: When engagement rings are no longer engagement rings

Yesterday afternoon, I opened up an email forwarded by a writer friend that often sends me wedding-related links and stories that she thinks I might find interesting. Except this one came with the caveat that I would have to write a blog post after reading it. I was intrigued. 

The original message was from one Olga Topchaya, Director of Marketing for Leon Megé Inc, which bills itself as a "luxury jewelry company." Olga touted the launch of an "unprecedented product" in engagement ring fashion based on the philosophy that "fashion is not merely a style; it's a state of mind." Go on.

"An engagement ring is not merely for the engaged." 


Wait . . . 


Huh?


"The rings will transform and expand the meaning and purpose of an engagement ring," wrote Olga.

At first I thought it was a bad joke. Believe me, it is not.

For every non-occasion in your dating or single life, there's a ring for that:


Le Petite Indépendance: enables a single woman to own an engagement ring

Le Petite Amour: a token of affection

Le Petite Liberté: a symbol of freedom from society’s standards for love necessitating Marriage – proposal for cohabitation

Le Petite Promesse: an oath that an engagement will occur at some point in the future

Le Petite Allusion: a woman wears to drop a hint to her significant other her taste in an engagement ring before he makes a mistake

The list goes on.

Like a bad flashback to the scene in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days where pitch-man Matthew McConaughey comes up with the cringe-worthy slogan "Ladies: Frost Yourselves" as a ploy to get women to buy their own diamonds instead of receiving them as gifts from gentleman romancers, Leon Megé's utterly transparent scheme to boost sales under the pretense of feminism is seriously the worst case of life imitating art.

From the press release accompanying the email: "Megé asserts that our society has dictated that a diamond ring has to be a symbol of engagement. 'Especially in today’s world, where marriage rates are declining and divorce rates are increasing, it seems hardly fair that such luxury should be reserved for the bride,' states Megé."

While I appreciate Mr. Megé's indisputably sincere and heartfelt concern for all the unwedded women of the world and for our nation's rising divorce rate, aside from being just a ridiculously stupid idea altogether, this marketing blunder accomplishes nothing more than the cheapening of what engagement signifies and what marriage means. Let me wax philosophical for just a moment.

I dated my fiancé for 8 years before we got engaged. By giving me that ring and asking me to marry him, he meant that just being together wasn't enough. That we were going to be together always. That he cared enough about me to put up with my moody sniping and griping, my spontaneous late-night cheese fry cravings, my large and occasionally overbearing family, my flighty memory, the slow incursion of my stuff into every available space in the apartment including in his own tiny closet, and all the other good and bad and annoying stuff that comes with me. That not only did he love me and did I know he loved me, but that he wanted to declare that love before friends, family, and God.

Even if the Western World's symbol of engagement had instead evolved over time to the wearing of a necklace or a pin or a tattoo or a piece of twine instead of a diamond ring, the ultimate value is not in its market worth but in its meaning. By equalizing everybody so as not to leave out anybody, it becomes special to nobody.

Paging Johnny Depp?

Found this story today about a couple who stumbled upon none other than The Boss himself while posing for engagement photos on the beach in Manasquan. How cool of a photo shoot that must've been! From the article: 

The Grammy and Oscar-winning musician did a quick tune up of Dwyer's strings and then riffed on the couple's coming nuptials, as the couple smiled and listened...

First comes love, then comes marriage...

Andrew and Alexis, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g...

We all know the nursery rhyme. We learned it in kindergarden or early on in elementary school, and used it to mercilessly taunt our classmates to tears as it was a well-known fact that any association with the opposite sex would undoubtedly lead to a full-blown case of the cooties.

In middle school, when we started realizing that -- hey -- Kevin Miller's silver braces kinda matched that silver sparkle in his brooding eyes that I hadn't ever noticed before, our friends teased us with the same old singsong to get us to blush as we passed that certain someone in the hall.

When we convinced our parents to lower their shotguns long enough for us to go on an actual date in high school, we realized that two teens sitting alone in a tree would, in fact, lead to the k-i-s-s-i-n-g. As would sitting in a movie theater, on a bench at the mall, on a cardboard box in your school's art supply closet, or any other surface that could sustain your combined weight.

As adults, a once silly rhyme has become a sort of blueprint for many of us. Like most of my friends, I stumbled upon the elusive "love" for the first time in college. Then I was lucky enough to actually hold onto it.

And after that love, we girls all know what's supposed to come then. But getting there once you've said "yes" isn't as easy as the rhyme.

Some of my girlfriends have been dreaming up every last detail of the day they'll say "I DO" since they were tall enough to reach Martha Stewart Weddings on the magazine rack in the check-out line at the supermarket. Others, like myself, are downright clueless brides-to-be.

After the shock of the rock (ohmygod it's big! it's shiny! it's mine!), I was hit by the magnitude of my new project: organizing a weekend of wedding events for over 200 family members and friends (we know a lot of people) without any major disasters, all the while staying within our modest budget. At first, it seemed the check list would be pretty straightforward -- find a priest, find a venue, find a chef and hit the liquor store. Bam, I'm done. But then I quickly realized that planning a party of that scale in a city defined by social and political gatherings 365 days out of the year was no easy task. In every step I take, I'm competing with the Fund for Orphaned 3-Legged Korean Puppies for space, services, prices, and even the most basic necessity for an event: an open date on the calendar. I am diving headfirst into churning, murky wedding waters and hoping I float.

I'm happy to say that I'm not going-it totally alone. I have some great friends who've already blazed the trail ahead of me and have offered up their advice and wedding books (wedding books? what are those?), others who have great connections to vendors and venues all over Washington DC, and a great fiance who is willing to go above and beyond the traditional groom duties of booking the limo and buying his tux. With the right luck, the right advice, and the right help, I may just pull this thing off... and through my musings, may even help another bride that is just as clueless as me.

First comes love, then comes marriage. As for the rest of the rhyme? We won't be singing that part anytime soon.