Wedding Wednesday: The One Where I Lost My Engagement Ring

This is not your typical Wedding Wednesday post. This is not about picking flowers or colors or venues. This is a story that no other bride should have to tell.

It's about the time I lost my engagement ring.

Bryan and I were just back from our amazing trip to California where he proposed two days before my birthday. That coming weekend, we planned to celebrate our engagement and my birthday by enjoying a typical fall Saturday: watching football at a bar.

We started the day in the early afternoon - for timeline sake, it was about 11am. I spent the day surrounded by our closest friends in Chicago, without a care in the world. It was my birthday! I was engaged!

We wandered from the Southport area (for those familiar with Chicago) over to Wrigleyville. The last bar we ended up at was the Houndstooth. For those unfamiliar with the city, I'd say it's about a mile walk from one neighborhood to the other. It was about 7pm, I would say.

A new friend joined us, and immediately, came up to wish me congratulations, asking me to let her see my ring. As I held out my left hand for the 100th time that day, I glanced down to sneak another peek at my new bling.

I saw four. empty. prongs.

Yep, you read that right. FOUR. EMPTY. PRONGS. The diamond—my beautiful, flawless, sparkling diamond—that had been in my possession for less than one week — one week! — was gone.

My mouth dropped open and I immediately burst into tears. I ran to my new fiance and silently showed him my left hand.

"Rachel, where is the diamond?" Bryan asked me, calmly.

(Sobbing. Hyperventilating. Sobbing. Shaking my head.)

I had no idea where it was. Did it fall out at the first bar we went to? Did it fall out on the walk between bars? Who knew!?

"Rachel," he repeated, a little more loudly this time. "We need to find the diamond."

I dropped to my hands and knees, frantically searching, but for what? A needle in a haystack. A literal diamond in the freaking rough. Yet, something caught my eye from across the bar.

There, smiling at me from underneath a bar stool, shone my diamond.

I was sober in an instant and immediately yelled at the top of my lungs, "EVERYBODY STOP MOVING!" Of course, only those in my direct vicinity heard me, but it had the desired effect. I made it to the barstool and snatched the diamond before it could get away again.

I walked it over to Bryan, who put the diamond in his pocket, and immediately left the bar. Me? I proceeded to cry my eyes out for the next couple of hours, while the group bought me shots in an effort to A) shut me up and b) make me stop crying. They did not achieve either.

The story is funny to tell now. I still hate to think about what would have happened if I hadn't found it. I exchanged words with the jeweler where Bryan purchased my ring and we have not had any problems since, thank goodness. As soon as my pretty princess was back on my finger, we got that shit insured.

So I guess that's the moral of the story: GET YOUR RING INSURED. Immediately, if not sooner. We—read, Bryan—would have been SOL had we not found that rock. Truly, it's sort of a miracle that we did find it.

But as someone who believes that things are meant to be, finding this special diamond was further proof that Bryan and I were just that: meant to be.

The night we got engaged in California, pre-losing the diamond.

Do you have any wedding or engagement horror stories?

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