Jewellery News

When Bethany in the USA lost her wedding and engagement rings, she probably thought she had lost them for good. She thought she had removed her rings and put them in her purse but actually, when she took them off to apply some lotion on her hands, they must have been on her lap. When she got off at the store, they obviously fell out but she didn’t notice.

When she did realise that the rings were missing, she was frantic and returned to the car park to look for them. Then as luck would have it, she found her wedding ring but not her engagement ring. They looked around for hours but there was no trace of it so they dejectedly went back. At the store, they did hear that someone had been asking around if anyone had lost a ring. Then, suddenly, they got a call from the husband’s cousin, asking if Bethany was missing a ring. It must have been the best call they had ever received!

The husband’s lucky and while we don’t know who the couple is because they don’t want to be named, the very fact that the rings were thrown into the trash and found in the Yorwaste recycling facility is a miracle.

The husband threw five diamond rings away – his wife’s collection – without realising it, into the rubbish bin. It was only later that the wife discovered what he had done and she showed up very early in the morning at the facility to see if she could identify their garbage. It was very fortunate that their garbage bag was right at the top because if it were at the bottom, there might not have been much of a chance to find the rings. The Yorwaste staff willingly helped and the woman, as expected, was overjoyed to get her rings back. We wonder if the husband got a earful when she got back!

There was a recent British study among women who had got married and the results are quite an eye opener. In the study that involved 3000 couples, 22% of the women gained nearly 10 kilos in the first year after the wedding ring was slipped onto their fingers. Most of them said that it was because they were relaxed in their marriage and some said that it was because they felt they didn’t have to be so terribly conscious about their weight anymore and had stopped trying to impress their men.

So what did the men think about it? Most of them did notice that their wives had begun to gain weight and they had mentioned it. Does this weight gain smack of complacency where women are concerned? Did the men gain weight too? Some unanswered questions in this study that would have been interesting to know.

It looks like the ladies are waking up and staking their claim on men. If a man can give a woman an engagement ring, in this day and age of equality, why can’t a woman do so too? Suddenly, male engagement rings are flying off the shop shelves and sales are soaring.

The latest in the news to by one is Jennifer Hudson and she ordered a beautiful diamond-studded one for David Otunga, her fiancé, from the famous Neil Lane. So is this branding of their man going to become a fashion that is going to last or will this fad die a natural death soon? As more and more women are earning well and they want to make sure that the world knows their man belongs to them, maybe the fashion of mengagement rings is here to stay.

Ivana Trump Fine Jewellery seems to be going great guns when it comes to the bridal scene. What began as an elegant line of engagement rings has now reached for the stars when it comes to weddings and they are offering men the thrill of a perfect proposal. The package was recently launched in New York.

Here’s the way it works: any man who buys a diamond engagement ring from the Ivana Trump collection will be given a free getaway package at the Trump Hotel and they will also be given a fabulous backdrop where they can do the asking. What this package will do is to take the anxiety out of the men – and they have everything planned perfectly for them so they can concentrate on asking that all-important question. The whole package includes champagne when they walk in, a luxurious suite with roses, a 3-course dinner and breakfast in bed. What a lavish way to propose!

In Madison, Wisconsin, USA, every year, anything that is unclaimed in the safe deposit boxes at banks is auctioned by the State Treasury. These items are sold only after they have been lying unclaimed for five years and it is done after taking into account the owners’ names. Ads will be placed in the newspapers for the rightful owners or their heirs to come forward failing which the items are auctioned. The names are also entered into an online database and the money that is collected from the auction is held for any rightful heirs.

This year, the unclaimed items include many diamond engagement rings and the auction will start on eBay on the 7th of December. One ring is a man’s diamond ring with a 1.75 carat diamond. There are quite a number of gold items as well so this auction comes just at the right time for people who are looking around for Christmas gifts. The auction will also include jewellery that has been handmade in France, women’s watches, pocket watches and class rings.

One has heard of weddings by proxy but getting married to a virtual character? It probably began with virtual weddings where a couple could get married online using their avatars. It’s happened on many sites, notably World of Warcraft. However, sometimes, gamers can carry a thing too far and blur the lines between reality and the virtual world and that’s when things can be a bit spooky.

Here’s what happened. A Japanese gamer – all one knows of him is that his username is Sal9000 – was playing on Nintendo’s game Love Plus which is a dating simulation game. He fell head over heels in love with Nene Anegasaki, a digitally created lady and he married her last weekend at a Tokyo technology fair, slipping on a wedding ring onto her finger virtually. What was even more surprising was that there was an actual priest and curious viewers who stood around watching in amazement. The priest did warn the couple that the marriage was not binding – and Nene did not seem to want to raise any objection to that. Nor did Sal9000!

When Robbie Williams went and proposed to girlfriend Ayda Field on a live show Australian radio broadcast, people wondered if there were wedding bells in the air. Till Robin put up a post on his blog saying they were not engaged. It seemed pretty serious however when he said the magic words, ‘Will you marry me?’ and she said, “Yes!” Then he went on to borrow a makeshift engagement ring from the talk show host to slip onto her finger.

As his agents took great care to inform everyone, apparently it was all just in fun though Robbie’s mother says she would love to hear about his engagement and would welcome a daughter in law. Robbie and Ayda have been together for over three years now so no one can be blamed for thinking that the proposal was for real. Robbie is on the comeback trail with a new album and a new boy band in the offing.