f13.net

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/86041/Stefs%20hair/SAM_0079.JPG)

Her saying "Yes" is easily the most awesome thing that's happened to me.

Her fingernails are far to square...  :why_so_serious:

Congrats on getting engaged, sir.

Those are definitely nail-biter fingers so watch yourself.  :awesome_for_real:

Gratz.

Knuckles are too sharp, too.

Gratz sir!

Undeniably awesome. Grats!

Ah, she appears to be wearing a blowjob-reducing circlet (Mark One).

It's when you put the Mark two on there it stops entirely.

Congrats, now you're as screwed as the rest of us.

Jesus christ that was a huge photo, I really need to remember to resize shit.

We're incredibly happy, and the effects of the circlet seem to be minor, she had a tonsillectomy last week and still felt like playing a game of just the tip last night.

Congrats on the first too much info post of the day.

and congrats on the other thing as well. Looks like lots of sparklies.

I probably looked at a thousand rings, and thats actually the second one I bought - a local jeweler tried to sell me a 1ct "G-SI2" ring with an inclusion 1/4 the size of the .5ct main stone, I didn't notice it when I bought it on saturday and it was glaring when I picked it up on Monday, it was a big unnerving waiting for the refund check to clear as he couldn't figure out how to do refunds on his credit card terminal.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Congratulations!

Nice job!  I took the plunge back in January.  Planning the wedding will be fun.   :why_so_serious:

She won't let me register at Cabelas :(

:uhrr:

IT BEGINS!  :grin:

(http://www.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/World/053110_tshole_doomsday_604x341.jpg)

From the AP... It looks almost too perfect.

edit: adding the related story:: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37445745/ns/weather/

Halliburton hole punch.

What is it? A picture like that needs more explanation

 :ye_gods:

What happens when you divide by zero.

Actually was a sink hole in honduras after a big storm.

I really thought it was photoshopped until I read the msnbc article.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

That's nuts; thanks for the explanation.

Apparently a Silver dude on a board was spotted just before the hole appeared.

What bugs me is that the sides of it are so smooth. At least from far away it appears that way.

Reminds me of Dune. 

You almost made me choke on my sandwich. Well-played.

Also, congratulations. From here, it only gets better then worse then better then worse then better...

What is the Mark 2?

I assume he's referring to the actual wedding band...I don't think that custom exists in many countries.

/embarassed

I hadn't ever thought that there were two separate rings, the engagement ring, and the wedding ring. I thought that they were the same deal! Well, its a good thing my SO doesn't want to get married.

I've been engaged for three years  :awesome_for_real:

That actually surprises me.  I didn't figure you to be the type that buys into the notion of marriage. 

She might be though.

Yep. I'd be happily unmarried to her for the rest of my life, she's (slightly) more traditional. But not hardcore, since it has been three years and whatnot. Whatever, I'm not going anywhere.  My wild oats were well-sown, I'm really enjoying this stage of life. Obligatory engagement ring pic (18k white gold):

(http://www.claddaghrings.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/S2503large.jpg)

Some women only have one ring. My best friend's wife only has one, for example. The traditional, though, is to have two. The engagement ring is supposed to be gaudy and ostentatious; the wedding ring less so, so the woman doesn't have to worry as much about losing or damaging it.

This explains the oral sex phenomenon.

My wife's engagement ring was a family heirloom from my family. For a wedding band, she picked out a simple gold band. I purchased a much nicer set for our anniversary and she didn't like them and had me return them. She said she prefers the very small heirloom ring and simple band even though some of her friends give her grief about having a smaller sized rock in the engagement ring.

This.  My engagement ring was originally my paternal grandmother's engagement ring, which puts it at 70+ years old now by the family calculations.  I love the style and my dad was willing to let me use it when I got engaged.  Husand did get teased a bit by his friends for not needing to shell out for a ring though.  I don't wear it regularly because the tines holding the stone in are fragile now, so it only comes out for very special occasions.  I don't even know if the stone is a real diamond/diamond chip, not that I care, tbh.  It's the sentiment for me.  Husband and I just have plain gold bands that we each wear and that's fine with us.  I also have my grandma's first wedding band (grandpa upgraded to nicer bands at some point for them) and I wear that on the right hand now.

My parents had a set of plain white gold bands that they wore, but my mom also has a formal wedding set that is an engagement ring plus a matching wedding band to go with it.  I used to think they were ugly looking, but have since grown to like how they look.  She wears that set all the time now, especially since my dad's gone.

Engagement rings are silly.

I don't think engagement rings are silly in and of themselves.  What is silly is the average woman (more than likely American) assuming that she is so special as to warrant some crazy, monster sized rock of a ring that costs one month of a man's salary (that's the accepted norm) or more.  Not only is it a rather foolish way to start off a marriage, but it says a great deal about the woman who insists on it, and none of it good.  It is also gaudy as hell, unbelievably tacky.  I'm lucky that I have a wife who agrees with me completely.  Also, no wedding band.  And plenty of oral!  Maybe there's a pattern here.

Diamond engagement rings are a racket.  The DeBeers cartel has spent an obscene amount of money making young women believe that if their groom-to-be won't drop a ridiculous amount of money on a ring containing what is actually a fairly common gemstone, he doesn't really love them.  And they constantly move up the bar, when I was young a month's salary was considered an exorbitant amount of money to blow on an engagement ring, now I hear girls talking to each other about how two months salary is the bare minimum, and 3 months really shows commitment.  The practice of having a separate "wedding band" arose because the "engagement rings" were too damned expensive to carry around.

If you want an engagement ring, get an emerald, sapphire, or ruby. something that is actually rare and probably wasn't mined with actual slave labor to be traded for weapons.  Until DeBeers programmed us into "A Diamond is Forever", that was the norm.  I got my wife a vintage art deco sapphire ring, platinum setting, and she's been more than happy with it.  If your fiancée is such a shallow group-think twit to insist on a diamond the size of a peanut, consider that the first warning sign.

--Dave

Yes, recently I've seen how much some people are willing to spend on a ring. It shouldn't be the equivalent of a down payment on a house.

We spent entirely too much on my wife's ring, but it's a pretty awesome custom design. I figure it will be a cool family heirloom someday.

There's a matching second band to the ring I got her, but I'm not sure if I'm going that route, or the traditional form of just flipping the claddagh upside down to denote marriage. I like the claddagh because it means a lot more to us than just a nice ring.

I knew there was a reason I dug you, despite your over the top tendencies.  Pretty much my and my wife's exact line of thinking and why she has an emerald, not a diamond.

I agree.

I agree with Mahrin's sentiment but I don't think that's something I'm ever going to be worried about.

I always found a necklace more engaging and complimentary than a single ring to an outfit. Conversely, I find multiple rings in a punkish style to be nice.

I'm weird.

If I should ever get such a ring, I want a silver band with nice lattice work.  I like an antique finish.  No stones unless they're small and inlaid, but I've only seen a few designs with these I like.

Nah.  It's several or nothing for me.

I shopped around for months before settling on the ring I did, and I got it through jew channels and am fairly confident I got fucked a relatively small amount.

Also, I should have been more clear, she'll totally let me register at cabelas, just for at least some of the things have to be something other than guns.

Point to her ring and then declare that,"But baby, guns are a mans best friend."

Ok, when did "awesome pictures" become some kind of bizzarro version of chicks showing off their sparkly ring to everyone in creation?

I spent more money on the ring than the stone in my fiance's ring.  She got an aquamarine, her birth stone.  The ring itself is full of a bunch of diamonds that make it sparkle just like she wanted.

I'd say go with whatever makes the both of you happy and screw "tradition" in its ear.  That's another reason why I used my grandma's ring, besides the sentimental value - I plain don't care for diamonds at all.  I'd much rather have a sapphire/ruby/emerald stone in a ring .. actually, I'm much rather have earrings to tell the truth.  The rings on my hands are all low profile bands since I used to work on the innards of computers and didn't feel like getting stuck when possible.

Actually, something like this would be gorgeous:
(http://www.jewelryexpert.com/catalog/graphics/Tanzanite-Triangle-Ring-1.gif)

I love tanzanite and regret not getting something when we were in the Caymans last. :(

Christ, how many stat bonus's does that ring give you?

Less talking, more pictures, bitches.  But since we're on the topic, here's my wife's engagement ring:

(http://i45.tinypic.com/s4rgqg.jpg)

And that's a Canadian diamond set in recycled gold, so :raspberry:.

I'm shocked I didn't notice that.  Was she wearing it ??

Rings like that give me the macrolens itch. There's so many awesome details you just don't know about before you enlarge them tons of times.

Just to be a rebel and go off the current wedding ring topic:
(fullsize: http://gallery.mindriot.as/main.php/v/Macro/DSC_4783.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1)

I took that handheld, so I'm rather proud it came out as well as it did, although I would've liked it if the DOF had been a bit deeper.

Handheld? Crap, nice work.  Mine still turn out noticeably shaky when I try.

Lol I was thinking the exact same thing! Been assisting on some jewelery shoots recently and learned a lot, will try and find time to do some of my own soon :)

And that's v nice for handheld tgr! Just ambient or some flash in there?

There's flash involved, I usually try to get f/40 or so to get more DOF, and you can see the effect of that by the background being completely black.

My weapons of choice are as follows:

http://www.shutterbug.net/test_reports/0601sb_sigma/
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/em-140-dg-ring-flash-sigma

As a side-notek it appears that the 180mm lens is awesome for taking panorama shots as well, with hardly any barreldistortion. Pity photoshop has so far taken about 3 days to try to stitch the 100 pictures I took of Oslo together, on a quadcore machine. It sure is working to earn its keep! :grin:

(quick edit: I only had f/20 in that picture, I probably had the lens about 20-25cm away from the fly, and I could probably have gotten a bit closer so I would be able to get more light onto the fly and thus stop the lens down even further. I wish I had done that though, because of the legs, wing and snorkel being out of focus. Oh well, next time, gadget!)

No, although she did bravely wear it for the ten months or so we were engaged.  Now it lives safely in its box and she wears a simpler wedding band that doesn't catch on things.  We got matching rings, so hers is a thinner version of this:

(http://i46.tinypic.com/2qtzny8.jpg)

Man, at that magnification you can really see how many dings it gets from being on my hand all day.  And the seam in the design that I obsessive-compulsively twist toward my palm so I can't see it while I'm typing.

Thank God for that, I thought I was losing my touch.

To explain, checking out rings is probably one of the first things I do on meeting people.  I have no idea why I do this (it's not what you think), but I do.

I'm usually that annoying guy in work who notices who got engaged after the Christmas break.

And then tells them what a fucking mistake they're making.

That's the style of band I like.

My wedding band is black titanium with an inset platinum band (I have no idea why it's black. Looked good, though). I wanted something simple, but didn't want a plain gold ring (done that with the practice marriage), and this appealed to me.

I remember seeing them for a few years in the 2000s, then nada after that. Never seen anyone else wearing one. I like the design work on Samwise's band, but I prefer very simple designs for myself. Too much detail makes me obsessive.

Wife has a platinum ring with a center diamond, and a wedding band that's her grandmother's wedding band surrounded by two matching platinum bands we had added. (Her grandmother's wedding band was too thin, and with the 'plat-gold-plat' it sort of echoes my ring, which was a nice end result).

Not pictures.

Since we are on the topic of rings. I always thought Tension Rings where cool.

Spoiler for size.

My wedding ring is a plan stainless steel band with two thinner bands captured within it that can freely rotate. I wear it on my thumb because my ring finger changes size dramatically throughout the day (lost wedding ring no.1 that way).

 Samwise and I have similar rings (mine is in white gold, instead of yellow)!   :drillf:  

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_R85dKVRG87Y/TAaCLzyZIRI/AAAAAAAAE04/KpTN_EagSVM/s800/picsay-1275494964.jpg)
 

Someone poke me when this ring horror is finished and we get back to the awesome. Sorry, I don't have any awesome to contribute at this time.  :oh_i_see:

Looking at one like JWIV's, but with a claddagh in the knotwork. Worried about the orientation and after hearing of Sam's OCD, re-thinking that. Maybe just the plain white gold band with knots.

I eyeballed this design for a long time as well:

(http://www.irishcelticjewels.com/store/images/P/RFLC029YNN.jpg)

It appealed to me because the three-looped knot symbol is associated with my family name in the old country.  I ended up preferring the symmetry of the design we got, though, and a local jeweler gave us a good deal on it.

(http://homepage.mac.com/surlyboi/sturdeering.jpg)

Wow, and here I thought my Celtic knot design made me special  :uhrr:

Mine is platinum though. So THERE.

Interesting to see  so much white gold and platinum. I like it a lot more than yellow gold.

Check sig :) Ill see if I can't dig up some of the more unique ones we have made.

Classic Claddagh (http://www.amuletsbymerlin.com/category/gallery.privatecollections.gold_knotwork_wedding_rings/)

Custom wedding bands (http://www.amuletsbymerlin.com/category/gallery.privatecollections.druidweddingrings/)

Humm.. seems not all of them are on there.

Mine's titanium. White gold would never survive re-entry intact.

The tension rings are great. Not easy to make though, or so I'm told. This thread inspired me to play around with photographing jewellery today, ring pics here, others in photo thread!

Some rings my girlfriend made last year:

(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4008/4663540015_41fdaf0d12.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/apocrypha/4663540015/)

I married an Irish girl, so it was either going to be a claddagh or at least some form of celtic design.

An bhfuil Gaeilge maith-ionadaíocht anseo.

I'm on my second ring, cheapo $99 titanium special. The first one was white gold or something, lost it somehow (I'm still not exactly sure where it disappeared - probably down a drain after being made slippery by dishwashing soap or shampoo.) I'll probably go through several more over the years.

The engagement ring I got Sjofn was a sapphire, for basically all the reasons Dave lists. All of my and her female relatives acted all surprised that I picked something decent-looking out. Thanks, ladies.  :oh_i_see:

The first time I got engaged (about 15 years ago) I was looking all over for a celtic design and I couldn't find one outside of cheap costume jewellery in goth-tat shops. When my wife and I were shopping for new wedding rings (both in the US and in the UK) all we could find were triskeles or claddagh rings.

My wife is currently looking to replace her ring again from this range (http://www.drachenfels-design.de/en/). There's a jeweller here in town that carries them and they are quite extraordinary although not cheap.

Celtic rings are really really popular now.  I'd say half the people I know who wear wedding rings prefer them.  Maybe more than half.  As a result, it seems you can find some really awesome looking designs.  Righ needs a new wedding band since he sort of out-grew his.  He hasn't worn one for a few years now because we have that "keep meaning to" disease.  Or maybe some other sort of design.  I don't like fancy so my very plain gold band is good for me.  I also don't need matching.  And I don't really see any point in diamond engagement rings.  Dave is right about that crap, too.  I don't really even like most precious gemstones  in jewelry.  I let my sister keep all my mother's jewelry because I knew I'd never wear it.  I have a few nice things from my mother in law, some that my father in law designed and none that involve gemstones.  Zippers are more interesting than diamond rings.

Truth.  Diamonds are the most boring stone ever.

I have to assume you've never seen one in good light (e.g. a bright lamp or full sun).   :drill:  Clear means letting more light through which means sparkly rainbow awesomeness when light hits it.  Like a glass prism times a thousand because of all the tiny facets a nicely cut diamond has.  My wife doesn't like wearing fancy jewelry either, but I figured the diamond ring would be a good bet anyway because she likes to play with shiny things.  (I was right.)

I totally agree with this.  I would love an emerald or ruby ring, but society dictates "diamond" and I was given a decent amount of shit from people over suggesting otherwise.  Not to mention ever since I got burned on a project at work 4 years ago due to wearing the wedding ring, I haven't worn one since (and now that I am not attached anymore, no reason to anyways).

I have.  I prefer a colored stone to one you need good light to enjoy.  Light which either blinds me from being too bright or from throwing a thousand rainbows into my eyes.

Prisms on the other hand are awesome.  On of my elementary school science fair projects was on refraction.

You have restored my faith in there being women out there who aren't brainwashed by the diamonds crap.

The only reason why my wife has a diamond engagement ring is because she wanted her grandmother's stone in a new setting. I guess it was set in a Tiffany princess (?) setting or some shit. I got it redone in white gold with a cathedral setting on Jeweler's Row in Chicago for about 300 bucks.

Best part was the box -- it had a tiny LED in it to illuminate the ring when you opened it.

Our wedding rings were simple white gold bands.

I've since tried to upgrade to a niftier wedding band and she refuses. She feels that it's "a stupid way to spend spare cash."

I  :heart: my sensible and no-bullshit wife.

Ingmar neglected to mention that I would've been furious if he ignored all my "DeBeer's is evil" rantings.  :heart: I mean I don't think diamonds are ugly or boring or anything, I just find all the baggage involved really distasteful. That said, my ring is not completely Pure and True, it has two diamonds flanking my sapphire. Curse you, Ingmar! I'm not sure why everyone was surprised he picked out a pretty ring. I wasn't! It's pretty enough that I actually wear it all the time, I had always assumed I'd be like my mother and never wear my engagement ring (except for Special Occassions), only my wedding band. I remove it for stagehanding and that's about it.

I'm still a little sad Ingmar lost his first wedding ring, but at least it didn't really cost anything. We're cheap-asses when it comes to wedding bands.  :grin:

The fiance's engagement ring was designed by my ex, of all people.

She also made our wedding rings, but the inspiration for those was Ed Harris' ring in The Abyss, so no originality there, but I really liked that one, so there we went.
(http://homepage.mac.com/surlyboi/abyss.jpg)

If you should ever be in the market for some baggage-free diamonds, check these guys out (http://www.brilliantearth.com/).  They're based in SF and they're very nice.

I couldn't find quite the right ring for my wife's engagement ring so I had a custom ring company make one. Edited a bunch of ring images together to show them what I (she) wanted and this is what they came up with. Turned out pretty good and I got the CAD file to go with it.

They used a milling machine (http://www.gemvision.com/html/products/revo/revo540c.html) to turn the 3D model into a wax cast and then finished it by hand.


Edit: Added actual ring photo. Half Dome in the background.

(http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/8273/ring3m.jpg)

Crazy looking. Nice work!

I really wanted a titanium ring precisely for this reason. My wife was afraid that I would have an accident and it wouldn't be able to be cut off, so I had to settle for platinum.

As for the diamonds are boring crowd- shopping for diamonds was FASCINATING. Getting to look at each stone under a microscope to see the individual flaws was really, really cool. Every diamond really is a unique snowflake.

(http://fraser.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/ringu.jpg)

If I ever end up having to pick a wedding ring, it'll probably look like a tiny handcuff.

On the titanium front, my brother and his wife went for tungsten carbide (http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/about-tungsten.html).

Fuuuuuuu! I've avoided buying a ring because I could never find somewhere with the tungsten rings.

Jerk.

Marriage is for suckers.

Bah humbug I say!

She's right.  God knows what would have happened at New Year if I'd got my Abyss wish.

I shudder to think.

We have done that.

Finally grabbed a pic of the engagement ring I gave to my fiance.  G1 camera is so not awesome.

(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4671882151_7ce644ef2f_b.jpg)

We had our bands custom made. Hers is the smaller one with a baguette diamond.
(https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Picture/rings.jpg?w=4703a20d)

Pretty awesome proposal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVoAWSP7k4)

That's a terrible proposal.  He'll never do anything more interesting than that ever in their relationship.  He peaked too soon.

For those that have done it, does the cost of getting a custom band made differ greatly from the price of the common designs?

Yes; my recollection is that most big jewelers will charge you about double for a custom piece, although smaller shops that make the stuff themselves anyway will tend to give you a better deal.

You're way too young to be thinking about rings.  Or girls, even!

Boys are okay though. :drill:

This.  The mall\chain jewelers will charge you crazy prices for custom pieces (assuming they will even do them).  A small shop with a good jeweler who does his own work regularly will likely not charge too much more than for one of his off the shelf pieces (or will give you a deal on a nicer stone or better material).  As I recall I got a higher grade stone for about $800 less than it would have cost because of my ex's ring design she wanted.

Not thinking about engagement or wedding rings yet. Helping a friend who has no idea what he's doing.

Oh good.  I hate when people grow up.  I think they do it just to make me feel older.  Personally, I think the rings that apocrypha's girlfriend made are really, really pretty.  Maybe he should check out her pics.  (of the rings, I mean)

Mine was $120 CAD fee to design the ring. The ring itself was about the same price as generic rings for whatever metal you wanted it in.

I've put off getting a replacement ring for years because I don't do gold and don't usually like most mainstream jewelry designs.  I may have found the place to get that replacement.

How about normal jewelry rings? Usually the style recommendation for men is to not wear any jewelry except a wedding band or watch but I found a few ring designs I quite like. I don't really know anything about the respective ring etiquette however?

Can I wear a normal jewelry ring on the ring finger of either hand or should I not do that to avoid any confusion? Any tips or insults you'd like to share :)?

Well, I know you're supposed to wear your wedding ring on a particular finger, which I guess is tradition or religion or something.  But finger etiquette?  Really?  Even if there it exists, do you really care?  It sounds silly enough to me that there are rules on what finger to put rings on and even more silly that anyone would care enough to take notice.  My opinion is wear your rings where ever they look nice to you, unless you're intent is to impress the finger police. 

I'm sorry if I insulted anyone by calling their fingers silly.  Really, terribly terribly sorry.  Srsly.  Sorry.

I wore an interesting amount of rings in high school on various fingers.  In an environment like that be prepared to deal with one of several names being hurled your way ;-)

I basically wore them on any finger except "the wedding ring finger."

Don't wear a ring on the left ring finger if you visit a singles bar.  Maybe not the right, either.  That's if only wearing one.  If you go the multiple rings route it's more likely to be taken as decoration.  Otherwise knock yourself out because who cares?

Haemish is about to get kicked in the groin and he doesn't know why.

The only response I'll give him is "Page 1, F13".

I'll show him better then worse then better then worse..

And she did.  :oh_i_see:

 :hello_kitty_2:

I may be biased. But a lot of the rings in this thread are just ready made blanks made by machines. Usually large name shops when they say "custom" simply edit the blank slightly, or solder on a different setting, and charge you out the ass. Some "Designers" are just placing together catalog blanks and other findings and stones.

Not really trying to plug here, but we hand carve, design and cast our stuff. There will never be another like it, unlike those based on machined parts. We still, end up cheaper in most instances. Out bands are thicker, we typically use more metal (unless the design is simply prohibitive), and we solder EVERY link in any custom chain we make. Such is the life for artists.

(http://static.zoovy.com/img/amulets/W325-H325-Bffffff/P/progress_02.jpg) (http://static.zoovy.com/img/amulets/W300-H300-Bffffff/N/nelson_wr_01.jpg) (http://www.amuletsbymerlin.com/category/gallery.privatecollections.stag_and_doe_wedding_rings/)