My wedding ring is now broken for the second time in three years. Normally, I would go back to the place where we bought it, but here's why I'm not. 

When Glen proposed to me, I was presented with a beautiful 1.07 carat princess cut diamond solitaire. It really was breath taking, but that ring has now broken twice in just over two years.

The first issue we had with it was on our wedding day. I looked down at it on the limo ride to the hotel to admire how sparkly and shiny it was, and there was a diamond missing out of the wedding band! I had worn it at that point for less than 8 hours. When I contacted the store, the kid on the other end of the line said, "I don't know what you did to it, but we can't help you", and he proceeded to hang up on me. Thankfully, the woman who sold us the rings was there when I called back and she did help us. The diamond was replaced under the lifetime warranty that came with the ring, but did you know the lifetime warranty isn't really a lifetime warranty? We found this out the hard way when my ring broke again yesterday.

I was chatting with Katie before I went on the air and I looked down at my ring and noticed that one of the prongs on the setting broke off and the diamond had come loose. Thankfully, the diamond didn't come out all together or else I would have had a meltdown.

Glen took the ring back to the store and was told that there is no lifetime guarantee because we didn't buy a lifetime guarantee. Hmmm. That's funny. I was told that there was a lifetime guarantee as long as I came in every six months.

Fortunately, there are still some retailers around that quickly restored my faith in humanity. I spoke with another jeweler who is gladly taking a look at my ring and will happily fix it for us. We won't have to wait weeks and weeks and weeks to have it returned to us, either because we get to speak with the bench jeweler who repairs the pieces right there in the store and we'll probably get it back within a day or two.

The other jeweler wanted to charge us $400 to fix their product and it shouldn't have cost us a penny because we were told that there was a lifetime guarantee on the ring, and I just found out (thanks to the wise jeweler we're going to deal with from now on) that it's a good idea to check and see if we have a separate rider for my wedding ring on our homeowners policy. Turns out there is a separate rider for my wedding ring and the cost of the repairs (or replacement if we so choose) will be covered. The first place never mentioned checking with our insurance.

I used to roll my eyes at some people I knew who refused to deal with large retailers because I didn't think it mattered, as long as they had what you wanted and you walked away a happy customer. Now, I'm eating my words.

The jeweler that we were dealing with was a large, national mall retailer who claims to be the "Number one jeweler in America" and I don't know how that's possible with their shady customer service and unprofessional sales and service associates. The jeweler that we're dealing with now and every single solitary time we are looking for a piece of jewelry is local. I spoke with the owner himself when I called today! They know me, they know my name, they know my husband's name and they're doing business with their friends and neighbors so you know they're going to be honest with you.

I need to just keep repeating, "Local is always better."

Lesson learned.

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