How many of you picked out your own ring?

Very surprised here, considering DH proposed after 3 weeks of meeting him, ring and all! The ring (I think) is drop dead gorgeous! I wish I had a picture..I wouldn't have done a better job myself.

Jeff and I were together a little over a year when we started looking at rings and settings. I had moved across the country to be with him, so I pretty much knew already that we would be married eventually. You don't just pick up and move 3,000 miles for anyone! LOL!

We didn't look at rings long before he said, 'I think I have a good idea of what you like, and when it comes to the right time, it's up to me to go and pick out the stone and ring, and do the asking.' He's a very traditional guy. So, I said, 'Fine with me!'

I totally wanted to be surprised, and I TOTALLY was. In fact, he faked me out TWICE before he actually proposed! My ring is everything I've ever wanted and more - I never thought that I'd have such a beautiful stone. It's a round solitaire, brilliant cut set in a yellow gold contour setting. Jeff picked this precise stone b/c it reminded him of me...he said it sparkles just as much as my eyes do when I smile at him....isn't he just the sweetest??

This is my exact setting, sans diamond...

And, this is what it looked like on my hand, just a couple days after getting engaged:

Claud, it beautiful!!!!!!!

We were up at his mother's car shopping for him and straight from the dealer, his mother said to me 'we're going to the jewelry store'. Well, I thought it was for her because she's Mrs. Gotrocks (sp?) -- never ONCE thinking it was for me because even though I knew we'd get engaged one day, I never thought he was thinking about it right then and there -- especially after buying a car!!! So in the car she asks me what type of stone I want and I just sat there w/my mouth wide open in total shock and pretty much stayed that way the whole day. We looked, I said what type I wanted and then told him I didn't want to know anything else about it -- what type of setting, when, where, etc. I wanted to be totally surprised and I was! I knew with his mother, I wouldn't end up being disappointed in my ring, and I wasn't.

Fast forward to 2 weeks later on Mother's Day -- Joe asks me to help him clean the windows on his car. So there I am w/the Windex & paper towels in my hand and he comes down and says 'oh look there's windex in the trunk, come look' and I'm going 'So, I have it already' and he keeps saying 'Come look' and I'm standing there saying 'what the **** is wrong w/him? I have it already. Who cares if there's another bottle in the trunk. Friggin weirdo' So with that I go around to the trunk, look in to see absolutely nothing at first and then I see this little green box open w/this diamond glistening in the sun!!! So, the tears start and there's his mother & grandmother upstairs taking pictures from the window!!!! He finally had to tell me to take the ring because I wouldn't go near it!!! So, yes, he totally shocked me and I didn't get the down on one knee proposal, I got one that suited us perfectly!!!!

Edited to say that he told me that if I didn't go look when I did, he was going to wait until another day to propose!!!!

We were together for 6 years when we started looking at rings. The first store and the first ring I tried on fit perfectly and it was beautiful. I knew I didn't want solitare, but I wasn't really picky about what else I wanted with it...either more diamonds, channel set, or whatever........
8 months later we got engaged.....it ends up he bought the setting the next day and then for 6 months or so we periodically went to other stores and tried on different ones.....even though he knew he had the setting all along...he ended up getting the diamond itself from somewhere else.

I was sorta surprised since I had 102 fever and bronchitis, but it was our 7 year anniversary so we had to celebrate!

i'm somewhere in the middle...

we started talking about marriage...he was under the impression that you got engaged and then married 3 months later...so I had to tell him I needed so much more time that that!!

he sent me some site whee you can design an ering...I never thought he would get what my ideal ring was...but he did...and did his homework too!!

while the proposal should have been a surprise...his mother told her friend that DH bought a ring...when she saw me she started congratulating me...etc...but I knew it was coming...

I had no idea. He designed my ring twice. The first time he had my setting modified to fit my taste - at the time I didn't want a high setting so he had it customized so the diamond would sit lower. It was beautiful.

Unfortunately, when we went to look at wedding rings, we couldn't find anything that went with the original e-ring setting. We chose our wedding bands (assuming I just wouldn't wear it with my ering on the same hand) and without me knowing, he took the band to a ton of jewelry stores to get another setting to match it. It's also beautiful and he took me to have my diamond re-set into the new setting. It was my wedding present.