And when I promised my hand, he promised me back snow cherries from France

He didn’t, actually, although I love cherries.  He just gave me this:

(Not photographed on my finger because I’m in desperate need of a manicure and I sliced my ring finger open with newly-sharpened knives while trying to cut up some fruit. I have a gigantic bandage on my finger now, but I think I’ll live.)

The ring is white gold with diamonds, made by my favourite local jewellery designer.  Her studio is literally around the corner from where I live, but the ring travelled with Will from our neighbourhood to Dublin, London, and Paris, then finally to my finger.  I didn’t want a traditional ring.  I fell in love with this ring last year, told Will about it (gave him my ring size and specific details) and I’m thrilled that he got it for me.  But I’m even more thrilled that we will be spending our lives together.

The moment he gave it to me will not go down as the most romantic in history, and that’s okay because we are not a very romantic couple.  We love each other to pieces, but we’d rather laugh than be cheesy.  So while we were on top of Tour Montparnasse at 10 pm, standing in the freezing wind and pitch black on the helipad, looking at the Eiffel Tower’s light show, he pulled the ring out of his pocket.  But he didn’t put it on my finger there, because it was pitch black and he was afraid he would drop it and we’d never find it.  We laughed and got a little giddy.

He put it on my finger at the hotel. And we laughed some more.