Adventures in ring shopping

The other day, D and I decided to walk into our local Robbins Bros to take a look at some manly wedding bands for him. (Mine is probably coming from the mom-and-pop shop where we bought my e-ring way back in September of '08!) I wanted to start the search early, because browsing online had left D seeming very confused about what he might want, and I suspected he'd need to try on about a thousand rings before he found one that he thought was comfortable enough to live with—seriously, the boy would just tie a piece of twine around his finger if he could. Well, that, and I just thought it would be fun.

At first, D was not really enjoying the process. He had in his head that he must get a brushed white gold or platinum plain band, because that's what men are supposed to wear. But once he relaxed a little and allowed his tastes to guide him, it got a little less painful... and then he found The One™ and finally chilled out.

But of course, it wasn't that simple (is it ever?), because D fell in love with a discontinued design by Samuel Jewels:
It's yellow gold on the outside, the dots are white gold, and the center is braided yellow, white, and rose gold with a matte finish (I so knew he was going to go multi-colored!).

But, wonder of wonders, the last ring in the stock of this style was his size! Surely it was meant to be! Especially since this style is nearly impossible to resize!

I wasn't planning on dropping a G that day, but we didn't see the point in holding off and potentially having to special order the ring later (at extra cost) if it sold while we were thinking about it (already knowing what our decision would be). I thought the ring looked big on him, but the sales lady insisted it was the right size and he said it was comfortable, so we went ahead and bought it.

I should have known better. When we bought my e-ring, the sales person kept trying to insist that I was a size 5 (I'm 4¾). They wouldn't size it correctly for me, telling me to just try on the 5 and "see." Well, it was too big, but it's too hard to size something down a quarter-size or something and they gave me a bridge. It all works, but I was annoyed that they kept trying to get me into a ring that was too big. And D had the same experience, apparently—the salesperson kept taking the ring off of him, so he never saw how easily it was going to slip off his finger. He put it on when he got it home (just to make sure), and it almost came right off his hand when he got it a little soapy. No good!

We're currently awaiting a quote for the special order in the correct size—a full size smaller than what we actually bought. We're also considering sizing beads in the ring we already have if that will help adjust the ring a full size. But bleh! What an annoyance! If we'd have known we were going to need to make changes or special order a new one, we probably would have thought about it for a couple of days and not bought right then and there! And I can be a bit inflexible when my plans are challenged. ;)