The Ring Saga

On November 1, John and I went to Marguirette's Exquisite Jewelry, here in Montgomery, Alabama. We were looking for Celtic wedding rings, without much expectation of finding any in town. One of the owners of the store, Lyle, mentioned that we could have them custom-made and gave us a great estimate for it. He told us we would need to provide a sketch of the design we'd like. He also asked us to give him a couple of days to verify the estimate with his vendor. Excited, we went home to start designing our wedding band.

On November 15, we went in with our design and put down a 50% deposit. We provided a .gif file to Lyle at this point in time, and we looked at it on his computer. He told us -- two to three weeks.

On January 21, we went in to check the status. Lyle tells us: "Oh, I'm sorry. They weren't able to open the file." We asked him why he had not called us with the problem, and he apologized. So we went home, converted the file to a .jpg, and emailed it to him. I called on January 23 to confirm that the image was viewable and acceptable. It was.

In February, we called to check status. He tells us that they are waiting on the interior design (okay, now honestly... why was this not mentioned previously?) We were not planning on an interior design, so we talk to him about this for a bit and off we go back home to design the inside of our bands. It's emailed to him within two days.

March 9, I call Lyle to check the status. He's not in. March 10, he returns the call (only he calls John) to tell us that the interior design that we had given him three weeks prior was too big for my small ring. I can understand that--but what I can't understand is the delay. Because he didn't return MY call to ME, I called him also on March 10 and actually asked him if he knew how to dial numbers on the phone when he started in on the lastest problem. (seemed a valid questions) At that point, I decided John would have to deal with them from that point on, because I was about to go off. We redo the image and send it to him on March 11.

April 1, John goes into Marquirette's and asks for Lyle. Lyle is at lunch, but one of the employees calls him. He tells her that the outside of the rings are done (yay!) and that the inside has been sent off for engraving. I admit, we're confused. We were told that the outside could not be done until the inside image was in, because it was being done on the same machine. And if they could be done separately, then why were they holding off for the inside image. but whatever, the outside is done. YAY!!!! They tell us one to two weeks. By April 15, our rings should be done.

April 17, John goes in to check on the status. Lyle tells him that he never got our revised interior image. (Then how were they sent out to be engraved?) John is a little irked, to say the least, and at that point, I'm done. We decide that we are going in there on April 23, giving them one week to deliver the rings, or a refund. PERIOD.

April 18, we go into the store. Lyle and Marguirette have gone to New York for 8 days for a purchasing trip. ARRRRRRRRRRRR. We're done at this point. Absolutely livid. We talked to the manager, Anne, and told her what was going on. She's had nothing to do with it, and she is not authorized to give us a refund. So we tell her we will be back on May 2 and they can give us the rings--engraved or not--on that date, or they can give us a refund. One thing Anne said that infuriated us when we went in was: "Your wedding isn't until September, so what's the problem?" The problem? Hmmm.... your company has had our order for five months and done exactly SQUAT.

April 20, I mail a certified letter pretty much stating exactly what I told Anne on Saturday. I mail it to Lyle and to Anne.

April 21, Anne clearly gets her letter. Anne calls the vendor, who tells her that the image (for the OUTSIDE) is fuzzy and they need us to provide it in a CAD format. Okay, reputable jewelers can take a customer's design and put it into their own software. They do not ask the customer to purchase software to do it for them. While I'm nice to Anne who has not had anything to do with this, I'm also pretty livid again. We were clearly lied to back on April 1 about the exterior of the rings being finished. The company wants to use our design as a test for their equipment.

Lyle gets back on April 27. He does not call us to apologize. I call on April 29 to verify he will be in on May 2. His only comment to me is "I'll be here." Not "I'm sorry I dropped the ball." Nothing. Not amused with his personal attitude.

Keep in mind: I have not yelled at anyone at this store to this point. John is pretty angry too and he wants to shout at them. He has a MUCH longer fuse than I do. For him to be wanting to yell and break things is rather indicative of the level of frustration we have.

May 2, we went in. Lyle had gone home sick, but Marguirette was there. She didn't try to argue the "we only give store credit" angle. She didn't try to say that they had plenty of time to get our rings done. She gave us a check for our deposit and apologized. She gave us the name of three companies in town who might be able to help us get our rings.

But the bottom line: we are now very nervous of the custom angle at less than 5 months out, since it took them 5 and a half months to accomplish nothing. And whatever ring I get was going to have to be sized down period. We looked in to custom bands, but now we're rather gun shy of them at this point when there is a time crunch. We bought our wedding bands at Kays. John's is really pretty. When we add the two 2 mm white gold bands to mine, they look like a perfect matched set.

So, we have our wedding rings. Are they everything I hoped they'd be? No. But they are what we can afford, and they are no longer stressing me out! As soon as the two 2mm bands are back from the sizing, they will be in hand and I can put them in a safe place.

And for one of our anniversaries, when there is no time crunch and the economy has gotten better -- we *will* get the wedding bands we wanted. We'll probably use the metal from the ones we have now so we have that metal involved in the process. But someday, we will have the bands we designed.

And DO NOT USE MARGUIRETTE'S! (if you do... UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES allow them to put Lyle as your account rep!)