Jewellery Store Clerk Claims Man’s $130 Engagement Ring For Fiancée Is ‘Pathetic’

Way back in the fifteenth century, an Archduke by the name of Maximilian of Austria gave a lady named Mary of Burgundy a shiny gold rings covered in diamonds…

…and ever since that day brides have been absolutely FREAKIN’ obsessed with diamond rings.

Most brides, actually, would be more accurate to say. For you see, a young bride by the name of Ariel Desiree McRae who hails from Nashville, Tennesse, literally couldn’t care less what her ring was made of. For her, it’s the thought that counts.

And while many of us probably (or at least, definitely should) agree with her, there was one extremely rude Pandora employee shared a very different opinion to Ariel, and she certainly wasn’t afraid to make that opinion of hers known. She made it known by ring-shaming the ring Ariel and her fiancee were buying together – it was $130 and the employee called it “pathetic”.

Disgusting.

Ariel was incredibly hurt – as I’m sure you can imagine. Although she didn’t wasnt to make a scene (which is where her and I completely differ as you KNOW I’d be causing scenes all around that store), when she arrived back home she wrote up a very powerful Facebook post in which Ariel listed ALL of the reasons why that situation was so, so wrong.

At the time of writing this article, her post has now been liked by over 110k people and shared by over 130k of them from all over the world.

Keep scrolling to find out what she wrote.

“My husband doesn’t have a lot, neither of us does. We scrape and scrape to pay bills and put food in our bellies, but after almost 2 years of dating we decided that we couldn’t wait anymore, so we didn’t.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about rings, I just wanted to marry my best friend, but he wouldn’t have it. He scraped up just enough money to buy me two matching rings from Pandora. Sterling silver and CZ to be exact. That’s what sits on my ring finger, and I am so in love with them.”

“While we were purchasing my rings, however, another lady that was working there came over to help the lady selling them to us. She said, “Y’all can you believe that some men get these as engagement rings? How pathetic.” When she said that I watched my now husband’s face fall. He already felt bad because he couldn’t afford the pear-shaped set that so obviously had my heart and covered my Pinterest page.

He already felt like a failure, asking me again and again “Are you sure you’ll be happy with these? Are you sure this is okay?” He was so upset at the idea of not making me happy enough and of me not wanting to marry him because my rings didn’t cost enough money or weren’t flashy enough.”

“Old Ariel would have ripped that woman a new one. Mature Ariel said, ‘It isn’t the ring that matters, it is the love that goes into buying one that matters.’ We bought the rings and left.”

“Y’all I would have gotten married to this man if it had been a 25¢ gum balll machine ring,” she continued.

“When did our nation fall so far to think the only way a man can truly love a woman is if he buys her $3,000+ jewelry and makes a public decree of his affection with a said flashy ring? Sure they are nice, sure the sentiment is wonderful and I’m not trying to cut down any of your experiences, but when did it come to all that? Why do material possessions equate love?”

“My husband was so afraid of me not wanting him because he couldn’t afford a piece of jewelry. He was afraid that the love I have for him would pale because he couldn’t afford the wedding set I wanted. The world has made it this way and it is so sad.”

“But here I am though, Court-House married, $130 ring set, the love of my life by my side and happier than I could ever imagine.”

And then, after her post went viral, Ariel decided to write an update to it for all those people who had supported her.

“This post keeps growing much to my surprise, and I’ve been asked a thousand times how we met. So here is the short version! My husband and I met online at the age of 20, talked on the phone (and I mean actually talked not text) for 6+ hours a day for two days. He then drove an hour out of his way to take me on a date. I wore a tacky Christmas sweater (if you think I am lying, ask him) We ate wings, had a burping contest, and drove around listening to music and singing.

I fell in love with him on the first date.”

“If he had asked me to marry him the first time we met, I probably would have said yes. To be honest, we had wanted to elope three months into dating, but decided to take some extra time to get established beforehand.

Ultimately we couldn’t wait any longer.. so we eloped. I’ve never been this happy in my life and I couldn’t imagine spending it with anyone else ever.”

Ariel’s story proves that a couple who have similar virtues and have their priorities straight are on the right track. However, buying an expensive engagement ring isn’t totally unreasonable in itself. For example, according to a paper by Lee Cronk and Bria Dunham from the Department of Anthropology and Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at Rutgers University,

“Male income has the strongest effect on ring cost. Although this is not surprising in light of a general correlation between men’s incomes and the amounts they spend on consumer goods, it is still an important finding. While the cost of a ring might tell a woman little that she does not already know about a man’s income, the fit between a man’s overall spending habits and the cost of an engagement ring he offers might give a woman valuable information about his willingness to commit to the relationship and invest in her and her offspring.”