Here�s the story of my best friend and the love of his life. If you only want to know about buying the rings, scroll down to the ring description section.
[Nov 17, 2007]Ebay Auction is here!
Once upon a time there was a guy John, who fell deeply in love with a girl (we�ll call her Fate). They lived together for a year before John bought a historic house with the intention of fixing it up. Fate liked the idea and quickly began painting and detailing plans for what she wanted done to the house. While Fate didn�t contribute much to the cost of materials for these improvements, John entertains her ideas and does his best to make her ideas come to life. At this point, I should mention John works full time and does well at his job, but is not made of money. He wants to keep the historical charm of his house, but bring everything up to date by upgrading the electrical and the plumbing. Fate however wants everything to be new and modern with the most expensive amenities available.
After approximately a year of hard work on the weekends, most of the rooms are painted and one bathroom is remodeled. Next, John and Fate turn their attention towards the main bathroom and the kitchen. What would they do with the two most important rooms? John wants to put in new plumbing, new fixtures and re-tile the bathroom. Fate wants the bathroom to be a work of art. You can imagine the difference in price between the two ideas. While John does well enough for himself, he also pays for 90% of everything in their relationship including ALL the bills, dinners out, entertainment, on top of the remodeling costs. With much of the house improved, John gets a fresh appraisal, and refinances to take out enough cash to finish the house to Fate's wishes.
John knows that Fate is the one, and knows that Fate feels the same about him, and he decides it�s time to take the next step. That�s right, it�s time to propose. John spends weeks thinking about a ring, the style, the size of the diamond, what he thinks Fate would like. After several days talking to a sales woman a Radcliffe Jewelers, John finds the perfect ring and a great diamond (see pictures 1, 2, and 3 below). He plans a dinner and a hotel to stay at near the restaurant. He has the hotel place a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice in the room. Everything was set! They have a great dinner, desert and a few bottles of nice wine. They leave the restaurant and walk around down to the end of a neary-by pier. They stop and John gets down on one knee. John asks Fate to be his wife. Fate says yes, tears in her eyes. John is on top of the world. John then takes Fate to the hotel where she is surprised to find they are staying for the night. Everything is perfect.
So Fate begins to plan the wedding. Her parents graciously provide a sizeable donation to accommodate Fates� lavish desires. A nice location is chosen, a 5 course meal decided upon, and her parent's fixed donation is quickly used up before flowers, photographers, dress, limos, and cake are even discussed. And then the invitations: they have to be done on a certain paper with a certain style of embossing. That's just the start. A $3000 designer wedding dress is next...over 3 times the budgeted amount. Money is leaving their bank account far quicker than it's going in. Every phase of the wedding is now over budget.
At this point, Fate decides John needs to demolish the main bathroom so they can have central air installed. John tries to explain that most of the money they need to finish all the projects in the house is being used for her fairy tale wedding, and wonders whether window units would suffice for the next year. She doesn�t listen and demands he start on the demolition immediately (see pictures 4 and 5 below). John does as most men in love would and complies. Soon the money that was earmarked for remodeling projects was almost gone. John finishes the demolition and has a company install the new central air and heating system. Now John doesn�t have enough money to finish the bathroom and the new kitchen they want. With what little they have, they decide to focus on the demolished bathroom. John wants a decent tub, a pedestal sink and a toilet. Fate wants expensive glass tile, a roman tub and intricate lighting. Reality is now setting in with John.
During the demolition process Fate begins to become annoyed with her job. John searches the internet looking for other possibilities for Fate, who seems reluctant to DO anything about her miserable job situation. One day John was participating in a charity event and had the opportunity to meet a woman in Fate's line of work. During their conversation, John finds out that the woman has an opening with her company that would be perfect for Fate. Fate applies and gets the position. The position also pays 25% more than her previous position.
Like many younger women, Fate had guy "friends". As every guy can attest, boyfriends and fianc�s don�t like guy "friends". While John put up with Fates� guy friends, he didn�t like them or appreciate Fate hanging out with them whenever she felt like it, often saying she was "out with the girls", or simply not telling John at all. John tried his best to be ok with her guy friends. He let her go to movies, dinner and various other events with them. Until...
One night while at dinner with friends, one of Fates� friends inquires about the cute IT guy at her new job. John overhears this and questions Fate about him. She says it is nothing, she had forwarded a picture of him to her friend, and besides...he is MARRIED...nothing to worry about! Stop being so jealous! So John shrugs it off and they have a nice time a dinner. After much wine, and great food, they head home for the night. Later that evening, Fates� cell phone rings...a text message. Fate is asleep. John wonders who is texting his fiancee in the middle of the night. Rather than do the "right thing" and wake her up, he looks at the screen on the cell phone; it was IT guy. John gets a sick feeling in his stomach. What should he do? He openes the message. It reads: "Can I send you something". John replies, "John�s asleep, sure". He replies with a naked picture of himself, holding a towel over his privates (see picture 6 below). John�s disbelief quickly turns to anger. The wedding was now 3 weeks away. He awoke Fate, furious. After Fate sees what is on her phone, she denies doing anything with IT guy. "He just crossed the line, and yeah, sure, he has feelings for her." she pleads, and promises to end her friendship with him. BUT she adamantly calls the wedding off. If John was so jealous as to need to look at her cell phone, how could she possibly marry him?
At this point, I decide John needs to get out of town, and we decide to go on with what was supposed to his bachelor weekend. The cell phone story is told to all of his friends there, who all react in the same way: Fate was up to no good, despite John insisting that the phone message had to be a misunderstanding. They are glad the wedding is off, for his sake. It was agreed that Fate has some growing up to do if they ever have a chance of making their relationship work. We fly home. John intends to give Fate another chance...is even excited about the notion of starting over, and not having to spend all that money on the wedding. John gets to his house, only to notice that Fate is being very distant. She won't talk to him, or even give him a hug to welcome him back. Fate goes to take a shower. John sees Fate�s cell phone on the table, he knows something doesn't feel right. So he looks at it, only to see dozens of text messages between her and the IT guy the whole weekend. While John was out of town, she had IT guy over to John�s house. She had been to IT guy's house as well, the following day.
I�ll let your imagination fill in the blanks.
The Paypal donation section has been removed. There's really no reason it should have been there to begin with. Any words of encouragement would be appreciated, though.
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