Everyone has their hopes and dreams for their future. Some

Everyone has their hopes and dreams for their future. Some people plan out their goals from childhood; others take their time exploring the options around them. When I was in high school there were some female classmates that were planning out their weddings. There was one group of girls that were friends that actually started buying things for each others hope chests for birthdays and holidays. They were giving each other bath towel sets, sheets and dishes. I thought this was crazy. I wanted to do too many things to think about settling down into a marriage.

I completed college, started working in my career field and did some traveling. I met my future husband at work. We were both child care counselors at a treatment facility for adolescent children with emotional and behavioral problems. We knew each other eighteen months before we began dating. We dated for six months, were engaged for three and were then married. Once we decided to get married we did not want to have a long engagement. A few days after becoming engaged we went to look for rings. I have very short fingers, so I cannot wear large rings. We found black hills gold rings on sale at a small jewelry shop. I convinced my fianc to come in and look at them. When I mentioned black hills gold rings he imagined the large rings that many men wear. I explained to him that the black hills gold rings that I was interested in were not the large ornate kind, but more refined in their detail.

He liked the womens wedding set immediately. The engagement ring had two leaves and a grape cluster with a small diamond nestled into it. The wedding band had two additional leaves and a grape cluster. The two rings fit together to surround the diamond. It was a very unique ring that fit my short fingers very well. For his wedding band we found a white gold band with the black hills gold roses inlaid on two thirds of the band, leaving the back of the ring plain. The ring was of average width. He liked how it looked on his hand and it complimented my ring very nicely.

Through the years we have each worn our wedding bands daily. When we were married twenty years I surprised him with a new wedding band featuring channel diamonds in a platinum setting. He loved the new ring, but still wanted to wear his original wedding band. He had the original band made smaller so he could wear it on his pinky.