Swing and a miss

GG and I decided to take advantage of a free Saturday morning and scout out wedding rings.  We both had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted, so we anticipated this shopping outing would be pleasant, efficient, and productive.  And, like in so many other instance of wedding planning, we were pretty off-base in those optimistic expectations. 

Here's some context for you.  GG designed and purchased my engagement ring at a local Pittsburgh jeweler.  He had a marvelous customer-service experience, receiving a lot of one-on-one attention with the company's owner, who guided him through the engagement ring process.  Pretty much since we got engaged, he hasn't shied away from oohing and aahing over the entire experience, so I was excited to finally visit the store and have the same type of fun when selecting our wedding rings.  GG was interested in a medium-width, yellow gold ring with a beveled edge, like this one:

 

Source 

As for me, I was using my engagement ring for some inspiration.  My e-ring's band is actually a wedding band that GG added a center stone setting to.  Here's a glimpse at my e-ring:

personal photo

While shopping for the e-ring, he really warmed to the idea of me using another of the same band, without the center stone setting, as my wedding band.  The band is pretty thin, and I'm looking for a bit more oomph on my finger in terms of width, so I decided that I wanted not one but two of that same thin band, to kind of sandwich my e-ring.  

 

Unfortunately, even with a specific vision of what we were looking for and a specific store we intended to purchase from, our plan kind of fizzled.  When we visited the store, we found ourselves in a store with two employees trying to pay attention to four or five shopping pairs, which is obviously not going to work smoothly.  Moreover, other couples had appointments who came in shortly after us had appointments, while we were just in on a whim.  As a consequence, the store owner, who GG had raved so highly about, was kind of all over the place, scurrying around, trying to finish our shopping trip as quickly as possible so she could move on to the scheduled customer.  I don't blame her for that strategy, since we didn't have an appointment.  And, if I came into a store with an appointment only to have to wait around while some schmucks who just mosied on in got served for an extended period of time first, I'd be peeved to say the least.  So, I get it.  No hard feelings.

However, the reality is, the customer service was a little average.  I tried on officially one wedding band (the one I wanted, but still... I kind of wanted to look around a smidge more), and GG tried on three.  In addition to the rapid-fire ring shopping, we also got blindsided by the prices.  We were prepared to pay what we considered to be a pretty penny for these rings, and let's just say, our selections came out to be about 2 or 3 pretty pennies.  Between the blink-and-you-miss-it ring selections and the budget-busting price tags, we got gun shy.  No ring purchases for us that day.  Instead, we retreated back to our apartment to lick our wounds and re-evaluate.  

What parts of wedding planning were disappointing or off-putting to you?  How did you recover?