Truth and Honesty

About a week later, we received a voice mail from our original Cincinnati salesperson, Lady Highbrow. She wanted to make sure we had made it in to place our order—as the “cutting it too close” time was upon us—and to wish us continued luck in the planning of our wedding.

I thought that seemed nice of her and left her a return message a couple days later, stating that we had been in and had placed the order with another associate. I thanked her for all her help and thought that was the end.

A few days later, I received a call from her again. First, she thanked me for the return call and was glad everything was going well for us (well sort of going well, as you are learning). She probably offered a couple other niceties, and then it was time for business.

“Did you ask for me when you came in? I’m asking, because I was there. So I’m just curious if you asked for me. We are working on a truth and honesty policy at work,” she said.

I replied, “We said we had been helped by you, although we didn’t have your card and didn’t remember your name at the moment. We described you and the woman helping us said your name, and we said ‘that’s her.’ She said you were at lunch at the moment.”

“So you didn’t ask for me by name?” she asked in follow-up.

“Well, we didn’t ask literally, but we determined who you were and that you were at lunch. We then told her that we needed to place an order for the wedding bands we had picked out, and if she could help us do that, that would be great.”

She interjected comments along the lines of: “Sorry, this is unusual to ask these questions.”

But she really wanted to know whether we had asked for her by name, as that was apparently the key criterion in the potential violation of the truth and honesty policy. It seemed she never quite got the exact phrasing from us that could make her case ironclad.

As I reflect, I still debate whose behavior was more unsavory. The one who pretended a coworker was at lunch and stole an extremely easy sale—or the one who called the customer at home to try and make a case against her mischievous coworker. In a moment of self-centered greed, I’ve secretly stolen a French fry from Christa’s value meal, but this was a whole new level. Yes, the pretty blue box had lost a little luster, but I am still available for endorsement deals.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Whose Lobster?

“I wish we had made the inscription say My Lobster,” Christa said. “That is much more personal.”

The glory of being the 25-percent-down owners of Tiffany wedding bands had faded so quickly away.

“Let’s call them and tell them to change it,” I said.

“It’s probably too late.”

“Let’s call and find out. They had to send it to New York for the engraving; it can’t be there yet,” I said.

“I don’t think they are going to let us change it,” she said dejectedly.

“Like they’re going to ignore us; we’re the customers.”

Wait. Let me rephrase that in more descriptive terms. Surely, having confirmed our status as two-time, four-figure Tiffany shoppers, not last-minute-holiday, shiny-stocking-stuffer shoppers, but true aficionados of partial-carat diamonds, they could make that change for us. I placed the call and described our problem.

“Well, sir, once we put it on paper and send it, it’s hard to make changes. You see—because we wrote it on paper,” they replied.

It felt like they were describing the abortion of a space mission, but in an archaic, yet surprisingly well-to-do manner.

Unfortunately, helping us add two letters to each of our inscriptions, a twenty-dollar value, caused them to have to reprocess the entire order, thereby invalidating the financing agreement, whereupon they tried to charge the entire balance to my credit card, which was declined, because it put me over my limit. It took several calls to get my accounts back in order. On top of which, they were still noncommittal about whether they could actually make the change in the inscription.

“We can try and accommodate you, but the order is already on the way to New York,” they continued.

Do they have phones there? Is there an order number you could use for tracking and referral? Did you send it by flying donkey? Don’t flying donkeys have pagers? I couldn’t imagine this was as hard as it seemed.

They made a point of saying several times, “We can’t promise you anything. It’s already left our store.”

They acted like there was a black hole that orders got tossed into. Have we told you the story of our invitations? We greatly preferred not to sit around and wait while our doomsday-prognosticating vendors tried to help us out.

Only when they called back and said our order was in, and I asked, “Were you able to make the inscription change?” did they congratulate themselves and say, “Yes, we were able to accomplish that for you.”
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

THE WEDDING SCRAMBLE - THE WEDDING BANDS - Marriage of the Rings

The planning timeline told us it was nearly time to get our wedding rings picked out. This was an enjoyable task for her. First, let me speak on the matching of the rings. If you go to the big T for the engagement ring, you better believe you are going back for the wedding band. It is the only material item from your wedding that remains with you every day, so we decided to stretch our budget.

“It just wouldn’t look right with anything else,” Christa calmly stated.

I am sure Tiffany knows this, as they were very accommodating on financing and made sure I had multiple copies of my representative’s card. At this time, we were in Cincinnati and had to visit our local store. Our initial idea was to get matching rings, with “our” meaning that I nodded my head in agreement. Having seen lots of designers’ models in bridal magazines and other publications, I was confident my preferred style was a simple solid band—no edges, no grooves, no stones, no laser-etched angels frolicking in fields of dew-glistened wheat. This sounded good to her until…

We entered the store, received a hello from the plainclothes security guard, and smelled the excessive margins wafting through the air like beer brats at a tailgate. Every Tiffany adventure began with a courtesy tour of the super-sparkle counter, where the value of an Ivy League education existed in each display. I think something like this could be her “happy place.” Perhaps high-quality diamonds would wash ashore like shells in the surf of her beach house on a tropical island.

The security guard provided all the real attention we got. We are not bad-looking people, and we don’t dress like circus folk, but we apparently don’t exude an aura of limitless credit cards and trust funds. We completed the circuit. She had noted the various “if we win the lottery” must haves. I felt bad about leaving a fingerprint on one of the display windows. Pointing is so impolite.

We were at the wedding-band counter and getting a sense of what we liked. There were only a handful of choices. I was steadfast in my preference for a solid ring. She had agreed, in principle, before surveying the merchandise. Then contact was made.

“Can I help you, or are you just playing today?” the sales rep said. Italics represent her voiced contempt. Precious time was being taken from her day, as she addressed mere mortals in the “obviously above your means” portion of the store.

“Yes, we need to select our wedding bands to, hopefully, match this lovely engagement ring we got at your San Diego store,” I said, holding out the partial-carat stunner.

Does this politely validate our presence in your store and make your time worthwhile? She almost smiled.

Then it happened. The Magic of the Sparkle took hold of Christa. First it was subtle, as she asked me, “Why don’t you try on a couple of other choices, just to see?”

She pointed at one with little diamond specks alternating around the band.

“No, I don’t like it as well. I like the plain one. Fairies twinkle; I’m merely shiny,” I replied.

I felt I had some authority here, as this was really about the only decision that affected or reflected solely on me. This was the ring that I would wear for the rest of time. In this process, she was getting 98 percent of the attention and had tried on a couple of diamond-embedded bands that looked fantastic.

“This one looks so beautiful. It compliments my engagement ring so well that they bring out the sparkle in each other,” she said with her eyes aflutter.

I could tell she had made up her mind, but her guilty conscience was getting the better of her. I am not certain if she believed she was breaking a promise, either to me or to her wedding vision of matching bands, or whether she felt bad that her ring had sparkles and mine didn’t.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, if they don’t match?” she asked apologetically.

“Get the one you want. I like mine. It is heavy. It is metal. It is man ring.”

There was the sense of “I hope you weren’t too sold on having matching rings. I know I said it was important, but those were stressful times, and I can say some crazy things under stress. Really, would you deny me the sparkle? Perhaps it is you who are breaking our bond of trust, opting for your man ring. I thought our pledge meant something.”

Whoa. I was getting myself in fictitious trouble there. I had better stop. I get in enough trouble in the real world.

We learned that we didn’t have to place the order for a couple weeks and decided to postpone any additional financial burden, until the last possible moment. Our ring info was jotted down on a business card and an order summary, and away we went: the lay folk who shopped Tiffany.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Thingys 101

I don’t know the business side of running a wedding and formal gown shop, but there seems to be an overwhelming belief that each shop should exist in a black box. All information shall remain within the doors. No word of what you saw or heard should be passed on, and pricing is done mostly by witchcraft.

Because I was such a wonderful fiancé—and because our entire bridal party lived two thirds of a country away—I was given the pure thrill of accompanying Christa on several trips to bridal shops in San Diego. The layout was similar in almost all the shops. The most prominent feature was the goddess pedestal, where brides-to-be stand to be fussed over and view themselves in 180-degree mirrors. There were a handful of admiration chairs for blood-related opinion givers to sit in, and approve or disapprove of the gown options.

One half of the store usually contained various bridal gowns; the other half held the rainbow of bridesmaid dresses. The great difficulty was separating the color from the style. Instincts tell you not to touch anything in lime, but sadly there was a dress in lime that didn’t want to be lime, and it was just waiting to be snatched up by a colorblind bride, without prejudice against color, tassels, or bedazzling. The odds are against finding a dress in your color scheme and style to try on for an exact trial run. Instead, you must refer to the book of swatches, try the dress on in the wrong size, and project the body types and sizes of the bridesmaids into them. Meanwhile, across the country, the bridesmaids were all looking for dresses in the same way. They let Christa know what they’d found and wanted her to view and critique, thereby instigating the great bridesmaid dress scavenger hunt.

I tried to help with this search, but without a make and model number, it was a crapshoot. My choices produced the following responses:

“Honey.” The one where the second syllable gets lower, like I had just been told three times “not that one.” It was probably one I picked on color. Lesson learned, for at least another fifteen minutes.

“I don’t like the thingy.”

Was it the class of thingys or this specific thingy that was bad? Was it the thingy in combination with this other thingy, one too few, two too many? I guess I overslept the day thingys were covered in all the fashion design courses I took. I tried to learn the thingys to avoid, but they were all so similar, yet so different. Cursed thingys.

“Why don’t you just hold the ones I’ve picked out?” she finally said.

Your skills are not worth my time. You really help more by not helping. Did you not get the memo?

Once the options have been selected, you head off to the dressing rooms. Some stores have dress Nazis who personally attend to you, meaning they don’t let you out of their sight for fear that you might try and document what you look like in the dress. They wait by the dressing room, sometimes inside, at the ready with many large pins to create the illusion of an altered dress or to penalize those who attempt to escape with the knowledge they have gained. Fortunately, there was time for secret-agent photo reconnaissance. Given my previous field experience, this was really not a challenge. Let me see if I have any chewing gum in my pocket…“Oh, did I just take a picture?”

I’ll admit a waist-high shot of a fuchsia dress, two sizes too big really didn’t help the decision process, but it was one of the only victories I could salvage.

I was thanked for my efforts afterwards, since Christa knew I genuinely tried to help. But in my frustration, I translated it to, “I know you’re not a woman or aware of elegant style, but you did manage to drive here without getting lost. Way to go.”
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

POPPING THE QUESTION

I was shooting for a complete surprise—and had been upfront about wanting to find at least a sliver of financial stability before buying The Ring—but Christa was not idly waiting. Her subtle hints came in the form of: “I have been very good at not pressuring you into proposing. I’m not one of those demanding girlfriends.”

That might be reverse psychology. She doesn’t pressure. She doesn’t demand. She doesn’t even want me to propose. Well, I’ll show her. Yes, I think it was. Plant the seed and let nature take its course. Thank you Psych 101 for making my life easy.

Finally, it was time. It was time to give her a blindsiding. Let me qualify this remark. Blindsiding is not proposing halfway into your first blind date. That could freak her out. And blindsiding is definitely not proposing where she would least expect it, such as at a gas station or McDonalds. I may have overstated making the proposal a complete surprise, but it wasn’t impending.

I felt even the little ring box would give away my intentions, albeit only moments too soon. This was where paying attention to more than I pretend to paid off. I am aware, for example, that she has an alarming dislike of lawn gnomes, and she also doesn’t care for Russian nesting dolls. “They’re kind of creepy.” Excellent (fingertips gently drumming one another).

I knew everything was right, when I stumbled upon safari-themed nesting dolls at Pier 1 a couple of weeks before my intended proposal date of December 23, 2003. Why this made sense to me was threefold. First, I intended to disguise The Ring within a Christmas present. Second, I wanted it to be a present that would immediately lower her expectations, such as a despised nesting doll. Finally, I have affection for animals that are not so pleasing to the eye, such as a fine bulldog or a well-groomed moose. This in no way implies that I can’t stand the cute ones. I just wouldn’t give them VIP status for boarding the ark. Therefore, these little oddities just made sense.

I opted for the giraffe. It was egg-shaped and painted with some character. There were three total capsules or dolls, the smallest around the size of a large chicken egg. Perfect for The Ring. You see, The Ring is more than two words. It’s spoken by a magical voice carried on light, reverberating thunder, coupled with a vision of sun bursting through the clouds.

Inside each of the first two giraffes, I put what was almost poetry, but closer to a toast, on paper, and The Ring was inside the third. I used one of our better wrapping papers and a blazingly red silk ribbon that Tiffany gave me. Only afterward would she piece together the clues and admit that my taste in ribbon seemed a bit too refined.

My proposal was scheduled for the day before we flew home for Christmas, from San Diego to the Midwest, out of LA. Activities for that Tuesday included work a full day, pack, eat dinner, open presents, drive from San Diego to a hotel by LAX, get engaged, and try to have time to enjoy it.

Knowing it would be an extra-busy day, I packed a day ahead. Christa did not. She finds practicality to be optional in most situations. Substitute the surprise engagement with her running a marathon or building a nuclear reactor and, still, packing could wait.

After residing in my boxer drawer for several days, then being wrapped and deposited in the top of her stocking, The Ring was ready. The time drew near. Present opening time. After I opened the gifts for the cat, we began. It was the first thing she pulled from her stocking. She claimed it was fate, but it could have been my selective placement and the unconscious draw of my wrapping flair. My thoughts began racing.

We are both sitting Indian-style on the living room floor. How do I kneel? That would be even more awkward. I would really like to take a picture of her the moment she finally knows, but that would kill the flow of the moment. Having a midget hiding behind the sofa to jump up and snap it would be even freakier, I imagine.

Then the bullets started flying.

“This is nice ribbon,” she said, as she removed it.

She must know something. Evade, evade.

“I got it at a store,” I replied.

Sometimes the predisposition of male ignorance of the finer things can work for you.

Fortunately, the wrapping was loose enough to expose a hint of giraffe and distract her from her line of questioning. It was about the reaction I was hoping for. I swear, I saw in her eyes the thoughts: “Do the last four years really mean nothing? Have you learned nothing of my taste for things?” I relished that moment briefly. Then I proceeded.

“You do need to open it,” I said.

Giraffe one was decapitated. Packaging was removed.

“Hold on! That is part of it,” I implored.

She had just discarded the most momentous piece of love poetry ever created. To say I had spent the past four years conditioning her to be surprised by my romantic side at this moment is only a small exaggeration.

The first message simply read: “In celebration of the times we’ve had…”

This was followed by an “aw.” Not an “Awww, that’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen!”—but more like a response to, “Honey, spinach leaves are on sale.” I suppose we should celebrate the toilet seat being down each morning as well.

I had to put aside my hurt over that specific oversight, but I was feeling nervously triumphant in believing that she still had no idea. Giraffe two was decapitated. Message two was expected and spared the humiliation of being cast aside like mere tissue paper.

Message two: “…and in anticipation of the times to come.”

It received a “That’s nice” sort of response. Although these messages were minor events in the grand scheme of things, a little credit for trying is always appreciated.

We had made it to the last giraffe, and it seemed her hopes weren’t really that high. This was where I would reclaim the high status, where her jaw would drop, and she would be completely stunned by the impending life-changing marriage proposal. The anticipation for me was nerve-racking.

Giraffe three was decapitated. And “ooh.” An “ooh” you got me something—not a diamond-ring something, more like a pack-of-golf-balls something.

Are you serious? That’s an engagement ring! It has a sparkly rock! Is this really so ho-hum for you?

In that same split second, I later learned, she was looking at the back of The Ring, thinking, “Ooh, he found a pinky ring for me.”

I had outdone even myself. She was looking at the engagement ring and still didn’t know what was about to transpire. That was true top-notch secret agent stuff. I had MacGyvered a piece of the original ring box foam into a “stabilizer finger” to keep The Ring from rattling in the giraffe; the foam finger, in turn, had acted as a bling shield, preventing her from seeing the sparkle.

Then, finally, at least point three seconds later, the sparkle revealed itself. This time, there was shocked silence.

But I was so rattled already I said, “This is it. That’s The Ring.” Cue thunder.

“Oh my God."

“Oh my God.”

I scooted on my haunches over to her.

“I can’t believe it.”

“With this ring I pledge my life and all of my heart…”

“Oh my God.”

 “…to making you the happiest person in the world.”

“Oh my God.”

“I am not perfect, but I will strive to be perfect for you.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“I love you so much.”

“Oh my God.”

“I want you to be my wife.”

“Oh my God.”

“Will you marry me?”

Eventually, amid the shock and awe, she responded with an, “Of course,” which I boldly took as an affirmative.

I started to put The Ring on the ring finger of her right hand. Since I was facing her, this was the hand on my left and, therefore, seemed like the correct hand. It was not, which she pointed out. She wasn’t about to lose the proposal on a technicality.

She turned to her left and looked at the TV. Runaway Bride was on.

“That’s freaky. I wonder if it’s a sign,” she said.

“I doubt it,” I replied.

“It’s going to have to be our new favorite movie.”

I thought, “Well, it wasn’t before; does it have to start now?” But I decided against saying so. I simply said, “Sure.”

Next came taking pictures, mostly involving The Ring. I have never seen anything as distracting to a woman as a diamond ring. She was spellbound, like a dog waiting for the outcome of a can opener being used. Christa regained partial focus before I noticed visible drool.

“You don’t have to be in it. It can just be me and The Ring,” she said, gazing into its wonder.

I had gone from noncommittal boyfriend to fiancé to afterthought in about two minutes.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival