From the Bench · A Luther's love story
Some proposals start with a ring box. This one started with a brunch burger.
E calls it "the most perfect summer Saturday." Pure blue sky, warm sun coming through rustling green leaves, and their favorite neighborhood date course, in order: brunch at their spot, the locally famous croissants, coffee at a little laundromat-and-café, and a slow stroll along the Promenade.
It was so lovely she felt a little sad when P said he had to head home for work. What she didn't know was that the whole day was a plan, built to bring her to the right bench at the right moment.
Her favorite flowers, in gold
Months earlier, P came to us with a thoughtful inspiration doc, and E joined in to design it with us. When we asked about flowers, the answer came right away: peonies and ranunculus, her two favorites.
The first version had peonies engraved softly along the side of the band. Lovely, but E wanted to see something simpler, with more carved gold and fewer diamonds shaping the silhouette.
While we were modeling that version, the peonies stopped being an engraving and became the setting itself: a basket of sculpted gold petals that wraps around the center stone and lifts it like a bloom.
"I would've never thought of the peony basket but ended up loving it so much."
— E
From there it went back and forth, and every note made it better. The small diamonds came out of the basket so the carved flowers could carry it. Tiny openings between the petals let light reach the stone, the way a garden lets light through its leaves. New side carving grows out of the basket and flows down the shoulders, with a few small diamonds tucked in to keep the taper soft.
A map for Mr. Lee's hands
The final design model had a strange green glow all over it. E asked what it was, and the answer is one of our favorite small truths about this ring: the green was a map. It marked every place Mr. Lee would carve by hand, across the basket and down both shoulders.
In the finished ring the green is gone. Every one of those marks became solid gold, petal by petal, at Mr. Lee's bench in our family studio.
And inside the band there is one more detail: a few words P kept between himself and us until the day she read them. We're keeping it that way.
It starts where it started
Here is P, in his own words:
"When we were walking up the park, I realized how significant the 'distraction' part of the day was: listening to each other's stories, enjoying favorite yummies, just spending a day together being present. When I saw the bench, I saw our past selves sitting in that very spot sharing a scone and a croissant and thought, 'It starts where it started!'"
— P
He asked. She laughed. And then came the best surprise of the day: one by one, their closest friends' heads popped up from behind the bushes. They had been hiding the whole time, recording everything.
"When I saw her see the ring, I saw her joy, smile, and laugh and was certain that this was the future for me."
— P
From our bench to yours
When E sent us her thank-you note, Mr. Lee typed a reply himself, in Korean, wishing the two of them a happy, loving life together. That little note is the whole reason we make rings the way we do.
E & P, thank you for letting us share yours. We hope every couple who reads this smiles the way we did.
Have a story you'd love to build into gold, whether it's favorite flowers, a first-date bench, or a few secret words inside the band? We'd love to hear it. Start your custom ring with our family team →