This post is in collaboration with Shane Co. All opinions are my own. 

A couple months ago, Brad and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. We started dating while I was in highschool and got engaged during my Sophomore year of college. It has been quite the decade filled with many adventures. We have “accidentally” ended up in Key West, supported each other through starting a new business and other job changes, and now our biggest adventure of adoption.

As for that accidental trip to Key West, let’s just say that our 5 year anniversary trip to Aruba was altered in the Orlando airport when we discovered Brad’s passport had expired 6 months previously (I know know EXACTLY when each of our passports expire). 4 years ago, Brad and a couple friends decided to start a new business, within a few months, he left his job to pursue this company full time. A couple years ago we started down our adoption path adventure and through the ups and downs of the process we keep looking forward to what the future holds.

Since our engagement, Shane Co. has been a staple. Brad knows that he can always head up there to find a great gift. A couple years ago, I took advantage of the Shane Co. upgrade policy to turn two Ruby pendant necklaces from him into a gorgeous White Sapphire pendant necklace. It was such an easy process, and I wear this sapphire necklace almost daily.

For the past few years, whenever we have brought our rings into Shane Co. for cleaning, Brad mentioned upgrading my ring as I looked around the showroom. We decided that our 10 year anniversary was a good reason for this change and I have to say that I absolutely LOVE my new ring.

I had an idea of what sort of style I wanted for my new ring, but didn’t know specifics until I really started looking. Brad and I stopped by the store on our way to a friend’s birthday party and spent some time looking around to start getting an idea about what sort of setting I wanted.

The Shane Co. website was also helpful in figuring out what I liked and helped me figure out my “style”. I was able to narrow down by setting style and then save favorites so that I could always find them again later. I quickly realized that I liked the Halo shape, although I couldn’t quite decide between a round halo or a more square halo.

My original set included two rings – a solitaire diamond ring, and a band with some inset diamonds. For this ring, I wanted it to have a thicker band so that it could be a complete “set” on it’s own and not look like it needed a separate wedding band. One way I achieved this was by looking for a setting which had some details along the sides as well as the top.

Once I had a basic idea of what I wanted, and a few model numbers as examples, I headed to Shane Co. with a couple of my best girl friends (and Brad came along as well, of course). All 3 of our husbands purchased our engagement rings at Shane Co. so it was fun to go into the store and see how unique each of our styles are. We looked around the store and narrowed down my choices to the perfect ring. Surprisingly, it wasn’t one of the two that I originally had picked a month earlier, however, it was a similar Halo setting.

After the perfect setting was chosen, it was time to find the perfect center stone. Since Shane Co. has such an amazing upgrade program, I was looking at two different types of center stones – Diamond or White Sapphire. I considered White Sapphire because I know that I could always come back in and upgrade the center stone without changing the setting.

One great thing about the shape of my setting is that it could use multiple shapes of center stones. I originally was looking at cushion cut; my local store even brought in a few options for the ring; however, in the end we found a gorgeous round cut White Sapphire for the center stone.

I am so happy with my new ring and often find myself looking over at it to see it sparkle. Have you gone ring shopping? How did you find the perfect ring?