Pop the Question with an Engagement Ring the Right Size!

You have been dating for some time, you have a serious committed relationship and you feel the time is now right to demonstrate to her and to the rest of the world just how serious you are about your feelings and your long term plans.

Pick the right venue, choose the most appropriate time, in public or in private whatever you feel best and when you come to get down on one knee with a shining rock of a ring and your beloved says, "Yes!" you try to slip the ring on only to find she needs to have it cut off at the ER because her blood supply has been cut off!

Maybe a trifle melodramatic but it makes a very real, practical point: how do you know what ring size you are going to need when you cannot take her to the jewelers to get her ring finger measured without giving the whole game away?

We have the answer for you with these suggestions.

Ask Her Mom!

Mothers and daughters talk and share a lot of things (usually) and this includes jewelry; take her mother into your confidence and she is probably going to know what rings of her own fit her daughter or indeed, she will have access to her her jewelry from which you can get an accurate ring size for her.

Borrow One of Her Rings

Your intended may remove her rings from time to time for chores and activities such as taking a shower or washing dishes.

You have a couple of options here. The first involves a pencil and paper with which you trace the inner circumference, or alternatively you can impress the ring into a bar of soap (hotel soap is ideal for this and you should have the soap dry); remove any soap residue and replace the ring without her knowing it.

You then use a ring sizer (available in any jewelry store or even from the web) to measure the size of ring you need when you come to make your purchase.

Have Her Go Shopping!

This is where you rope in mom or one of her friends again; have them go shopping and in particular have your accomplice look at rings, sizing for a ring takes seconds and is done easily at any jewelry store while your willing aide can take note of the ring size for your intended.

An alternative to this is to do the dirty work yourself; go shopping with her on the pretext you are buying a gift for someone else, like your own mother or sister and while you are doing this have a note made of a ring she tries on which you can see actually fits.

If you want to achieve complete surprise with your proposal and still have the ring fit without alerting her to what you are up to, you are going to need to develop and practice some deception but have a care, wives tend to come with an in-built detector when their husband is up to this so do not expect to pull the wool over her eyes when you are married!