  On Monday we rang my mum and Jims mum to see if they would like to come shopping with us and have lunch. They both said yes so we picked my mum up as she lives over our way and met Jims mum at Garden City as she lives about 20km away in the opposite direction. We got there and started looking at jewellery shops. We started at Edments as that was who we had purchased my engagement ring from.
Another shop but that chain. We went in and asked to look at wedding bands. The girl did not seem to be awfully interested in serving us, and was not helpful at all when we realised that my engagement ring was an odd shape and we would need to have a ring custom made to fit with it. (We tried a plain wedding band with it and it just looked ridiculous. ) They did not have any interesting mens bands there at all, only plain gold wedders and they were not at all cheap. I think the cheapest was around $300 for a 9ct gold band. We went to another 3 jewellers and although 2 had mens rings that interested Jim, we were having a problem finding anyone who could make my ring without it having to be sent out of the shop and to someone else. This idea is not appealing to me as the more people handling the $1,800 ring the more likely it could get lost, stolen or damaged. Ian Hill Jewellers could make me a ring onsite but I would have to wait 2 weeks until their jeweller got back from Bali before we could even look at a design or price range. They had a quite nice mens ring and were the first jeweller that really showed any interest in us at all. The girl there was incredibly helpful. We decided to go to one more jewellers (I was just about over the whole ring hunting thing by then) and spotted Rosendorfs. Now like Ian Hill, Rosendorfs is on the more pricy side of jewellers that you will find in a suburban shopping center.
This was immediately evident by the fact that we received immediate, good quality attention. We looked at a large range of mens wedding bands and found a good 5 or 6 that looked really fantastic. Then Mum spotted a two-tone gold band with a plaited rope design in the middle. It was fantastic. Jim tried it on and it just looked incredible. So we got a card from the girl and then started talking about my ring.
She got a price range for my ring and said that it would cost about $385-$400 to make me a plain gold band in 18ct gold. We went away to talk about it. On Tuesday we decided to go and order both rings from Rosendorfs. We had decided that Jim's was just perfect and we didnt want to spend too much time wandering around to millions of shops to find someone to make mine. So we drive back to Garden City and go in and let Nicole know that we would like to order and pay for the rings. Nicole got a crestfallen look on her face when we told her that we wished to order both rings. Apparently after we left on Monday she had been told that the Rosendorfs policy was that they could only custom-make wedding bands to go with engagement rings purchased from them.
We decided to go ahead and order Jim's anyway (he has really small fingers and they don't have his size premade, it will take a month for the ring to be made in his size). But this meant we were still going to have to look for my ring. We had intended to go and do our gift registry list yesterday (can you see another post coming up? ) so we didn't look at any more jewellery shops at the time. We thought we were going to have to either go into the city or out to Maddington to get a ring made. A lot of running around if you ask me. Last night we went to Mum's to drop off one of the cats (another long story) and we were looking through her seniors discount directory and we noticed that the only jeweller we hadn't gone to in Garden City was the same brand as the one we thought we were going to have to go to in Maddington.
Could it be that they had a jeweller onsite there? We decided to ring this morning and check. We had to finish looking at items for the gift registry anyway so if possible we should try and get a ring at Garden City. Jim rang Garden City Jewellers this morning and they said yes they had a jeweller onsite and all rings were made right there on the premises.
So for the third day in a row we headed over to Garden City. (Have I ever mentioned that I really, really, really hate shopping and avoid shopping centres like the plague? ) We walked into the jewellers and I handed over my engagement ring to the girl on the counter who took it out back to show the jeweller. She came back a moment later and asked if we would mind waiting while Erica (the jeweller) drew up a design or two for us to choose from. We looked around the shop at the beautiful cuckoo clocks (hint, hint - if anyone feels like spending almost $500 on a wedding gift for us, we would love the cuckoo clock with the little people on it) and crystal ornaments. After about 10 minutes, Carla (the assistant) came back out with two designs for us to look at and a price of $580 for either ring. We were told that it would take about a month for the ring to be made up in 18ct gold. We thanked her, got the quote written on a card and went to have lunch and discuss the matter. After all, this price was a good $200 more than we had been quoted at Rosendorfs, but Rosendorfs only did that price if you purchased the original ring anyway.
After about 5 minutes discussion it was decided that unless we wanted to run around in circles looking at more and more jewellers that we should take this offer and run with it. So we headed back to the jewellers (detouring on the way to add to the gift registry) and let them know that we would like to order the ring. We were then asked which design we wished to have and how thick I would like the ring. I had to hand over my engagement ring for the duration of the making of the wedding ring and asked how long it would be before I could have it back. Carla said she would check with Erica how long she would need the engagement ring for. She came back with the fantastic news that the ring would only take 2 weeks to be made. So we paid for the ring, left my engagement ring (I feel totally naked now) and went off to do the gift registry thing. Cross another item off the list. Rings are ordered and paid for. 
