PW Reader Ring: Gretchen & John!

Gretchen’s ring!

The couple: Gretchen Murphy and John Amen from Lansdowne.

The ring: My ring is a round, brilliant-cut diamond set in four prongs and micro-pave diamonds. John says he picked the setting to enhance and show off the center diamond. It is beautiful!

John and I had done a little looking around at rings before, but most of the time, it was at outrageous things that we could never afford. However, from that, he knew what kind of style I liked, and so he worked with a friend who is a jeweler in his family’s businesses and figured out what he wanted to get me. (The ring is from Cozzi Jewelers in Havertown.) He even had his uncle give him the money upfront because he knew that if I saw that his savings account had been drained I’d know he was going to propose soon soon! He just gave it back to him right after we got engaged.

The proposal: We have been together for over four years and own a home together, so eventually he was going to have to ask me (or at least that is what I kept telling him!), but even still, his proposal was a complete shock to me!

One Saturday night I had two cocktail parties to go to—the first I was attending with my parents because John wasn’t going to it, and then the plan was for me to come home and go to the second party with him. I was running an hour late (as usual) to get home, so I texted him when I was three minutes away so that he’d be ready to walk out the door.

When I got home, the door was locked! All I could think was, We have to go, we are so late, but I finally found my keys at the bottom of my bag, opened the door, and John was standing by the steps in a suit! “Why are you wearing a suit? We have to go!” I yelled, as he told me to look around—which I didn’t do, and insisted we had to leave for the next party. He told me again to look around, so I finally did …

In our living room were calla lilies (my favorite) and pictures of us scattered through the room. I am a huge Glee fan, so he had Glee‘s version of “Marry You” by Bruno Mars playing on the TV, an he also had the lyrics to the song laid out on our coffee table. As I read the lyrics, “It’s a beautiful night, we’re looking for something dumb to do, hey baby …” I noticed the next lyrics were missing, and he was holding them: “I think I wanna marry you,” along with a bouquet of flowers!

I was in complete shock and dropped everything out of my hands onto the floor. I walked towards him and then stopped and said, “Does my dad know about this?” Of course he did, but I had to make absolutely sure before I said yes! He then said some sort of speech which I completely didn’t hear because I was in such shock, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. (I should note that I already had my hand out before he actually got down on one knee and asked!)

My parents live up the street from us, so they came right down, and then we did go to the second party, and my whole family was there, so I was able to tell them the good news. After that, we went to Frankie’s Cafe in Havertown, where we met up with all of our friends to celebrate.

The band: My band—or bands, I should say, since there will be two—will match the the setting on my engagement ring. So I will have one in front of my engagement ring and one behind, both bands of micro pave diamonds.

Read other PW Reader Ring stories here. 

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