BECOMING BARRY | ABOUT THE RING

Welcome to the first of MANY engagement/wedding posts! I asked if you guys wanted to know more about the progress of our engagement, and the answer was an overwhelming yes! Luckily I am equally as excited as you to take you along our engagement journey.

It has officially been a month and a half since Matt and I got engaged! I seriously can’t believe it has been this long already. It really feels like yesterday when we were just starting to DATE 5 years ago, let alone got engaged!

If you didn’t see the engagement on my Instagram, you can go check out the stories here and also see me crying happy tears when I realize what is happening and that I’m going to become a Barry!

For those wondering - yes I will be Rachael Barry, like in Glee..

So, not only did Matt plan an AMAZING day (seriously, like so much planning, so many events). He also hit it out of the park with the ring. This ring has so much meaning to us, and it feel so surreal that I’m finally wearing it! I mean - just look at me freaking out when I first saw it!!

The Backstory

To take things back a little bit…. The center diamond on my ring is actually Matt’s grandmother’s ring. He inherited it from his Grandmother, and has always had the intention of giving it to me. So much so, that he showed me his grandmother’s ring to make sure I liked it when we had only been dating for 9 months in college….Yup, he wasted no time. Obviously 20 year old me freaked OUT when I saw any diamond, but especially when I saw her ring. Here is the center diamond in its original setting.

The Inspiration

Funny enough, I always had envisioned having an emerald cut wedding ring. It feels so elegant and timeless. However, ever since I saw her ring and knew it would be mine one day I wanted to find the perfect setting to make it my own! Here is the inspiration - an emerald cut diamond with a halo! (Looks exactly like mine - right!!)

The Process

So how did we get from 5 years ago looking at his grandmother’s ring to now? Lots of time, really. In December of 2019 Matt asked my dad for permission to marry me (I know, heart eyes). Then, in January of 2020 we took his grandmother’s ring to my family jeweler in Birmingham to get the ball rolling. Although I wanted a more minimal style setting it still had to be custom to work with the exact sizing of the main diamond.

We worked with Cummings Jewelry of Birmingham to create my dream ring. They took the exact measurements of the center diamond and built a virtual CAD mockup of my ring! Then they sent it to us for approval. To all my designer friends - yes I basically approved shop drawings for my wedding ring!

Then they sent it off to be fabricated with their partner in LA in February…Then, the world shut down..We didn’t get the ring back from LA after their factory reopened until August!! I would have waited forever to get this ring though - it is absolutely perfect!!