You can talk to a jeweller, design exactly to a picture or your recollection, get a quote, and save up or pay it off.
That said, my binding and eternity rings disappeared within a few months of each other in 2014. I didn’t throw anything out for two years without sitting down and combing through the rubbish bag because I was *sure* I had dropped one in the bin. I cleaned and vacuumed and turned the entire house upside down and neither one turned up. I was on my third set of replacements (one set did not handle heat at all, so my partner just started buying $20-$30 rings at craft shops instead of us spending on jewellers – my eternity ring was 600 euros plus shipping in 2012!)
Fast forward to February 2024 and after I had turned the study inside out yet again in the process of moving, my dad picked up a handful of papers and put them in a trash bag. I saw a dull silver flash – could it be? I descended upon the bag while these very confused people stared at me. My dad started crying – had he done something wrong? I started crying – there was my eternity ring.
I explained the situation to my dad and showed him a picture of my binding ring. “I’m fairly sure it ended up in the rubbish,” I said.
A few hours later I was quietly working away, determined to not lose any more time to the moving process, of which finding my eternity ring was a faint glimmer against the four year hellscape the process had become. Time to check on dad, I thought, and I found him sitting on a box, holding up my binding ring.
I had turned that room over so many times. I had been through the rubbish so many times. I had retraced my steps – I had realised it was missing minutes after I thought I had it and I didn’t – it had been sliding off for months and I had been so careful because resizing it would have been silly given there were also times it would not come off for love or money or an entire bottle of conditioner. But there it was, ten years later.
So don’t give up hope – it is entirely possible you didn’t put it on and it’s under your bed and will turn up when you’ve given up. This kind of thing happens when you’re stressed because stress does things to you, physically and mentally, and the best thing you can do is be kind to yourself. You did not set out to disappear this ring which was precious to you, you didn’t set out to crash your car, and if your husband is reasonable he will be able to separate fault from feeling and work with you on moving past the current stressy period. The ring is a symbol of your relationship – it is not your relationship.
But if my binding ring can turn up after ten years when I thought it must have gone to landfill never to be seen again, your engagement ring can certainly turn up when you least expect it.
(Side note – some contents policies cover jewellery even if it’s not listed directly as an inclusion. I trust you’ve double checked, but just in case – it may still be helpful to do so!)
