Hey there! Recently engaged? Congratulations! Or, if you have been engaged or married for a while and have just been feeling called lately to take better care of your engagement ring and wedding jewelry, let me help you out!

I was engaged on March 25^th, 2016, and on that day, I started having something with me at all times that was the most expensive thing I owned that I couldn’t drive! It made me nervous! So I asked the amazing jewelry designer Tommy worked with how to care for it. He gave me some DOs and DON’Ts!

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Do:

* Get your engagement ring appraised and insured! This way, if the worst possible thing happens to your ring (lost, stolen, destroyed!), you are still covered! I kept getting scared I was randomly going to get mugged!

* Clean it regularly! You can do this with an EXTRA soft (like for babies) toothbrush and either dish soap or glass cleaner, if you don’t want to buy a specific product. Might I recommend Natural Choices to keep it chemical-free? Or, if you do want to use a product specific for cleaning jewelry, here was Michael’s  other recommendation.

You could also take your engagement ring to your jeweler to be steam cleaned or cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner!

* Take it off when you’re putting on lotion, working out, washing dishes, napping, etc – but make sure you have a safe place to put it, like back in its box or in a jewelry box/holder, ring tree!

Don’t:

* Workout in it!
* Wash dishes in it!
* Put lotion (or other cosmetics/beauty products) on with it.
* Swim (or anything else where your hands get wet or slippery and your engagement ring could fly off)!

Some of those might be no-brainers, but because I have a softer-than-average center stone (Tanzanite), I have to be extra careful!

You may have noticed that I haven’t shared any close-up pictures of my engagement ring (aside from today’s blog graphics!), unless you’ve seen it in my review of the Cutex wipes, if you follow me on YouTube or read my Bloom Vox Box review blog!

This is for two reasons:
1. I wanted the focus to be on Tommy and I and our love, and
2. Since I moved to California about a year ago, I wanted to have the opportunity to share it with friends and family in person first!

Now that I have had two trips home for weddings during which I could meet up with a lot of friends and family, I have been able to show my ring to most of them – either in person or on facetime!

So, without further ado, here are some close-ups of my ring!

It is a Tanzanite! Tommy and I had gone together to jewelry stores over a year ago when we lived in Milwaukee to get ideas, but I knew I wanted a trillion cut Tanzanite center stone! Apparently, the engagement ring of my dreams didn’t actually exist, so Tommy took what we liked from other rings (and a tanzanite bracelet we draped over my finger) to get ideas to bring to Michael, the wonderful man who ended up designing our ring!

I wanted Tanzanite because (and I know this will come as a complete shock 😂) purple is my favorite color, and I think the fact that they only come from one tiny place in Africa is romantic! The drawbacks, though, are that Tanzanite is MUCH softer than most gemstones used in rings, so it requires special care, or it could get scratched! That’s why I wanted the info right away from Michael, so I really wanted to pass it along!

I also feel like my ring is extra special because Tommy had input in it, and our designer is a mutual friend from back in Milwaukee that we met on the same day at a photoshoot where I did makeup, and Tommy and Michael modeled!

 

Well, there you have it! I plan to blog more of what I learn as we plan our wedding (from ring to veil!), so please share this with anyone you know who is recently engaged, or people you think should take better care of their rings!

Upcoming wedding and ring-related blogs: Why I’m not “Sweating for the Wedding,” How To Use Your Engagement Ring to Work for You, and “How To Select, Hire, and Work With a Ring Designer!” Also, we just set our appointment for our engagement session (or at least the first one), so we should have those pictures coming!

Stay tuned for more, plus my usual blogs about meals, motivation, muscles, and makeup! 😉

xoxo,

Mandie

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