It’s a classic scenario we’ve seen played out a million times—on the silver screen, in a novel, or retold by a dear friend: “We were at the restaurant, and I had no idea until he took my hand, got down on one knee and …”
Enter: the Little Blue Box.
With no disrespect to the millions of women who’ve been LBB’d before me, these days, an engagement can be so much more. As a Green Wedding and Events Planner, most of my clients want their engagements and weddings to symbolize their values—and their larger commitment to keeping our home planet as sparkly and beautiful as the rings on their fingers.
So what are the people- and planet-friendly equivalents of our wildest engagement fantasies? Let’s see some examples:
Surprise trips to Paris and Eiffel Tower proposals are tres tres bon, but for an eco-friendly alternative, save the dollars—and jet fuel!—for your honeymoon. Magical moments can be created closer to home, as in the following tales of sweet romance …
Your friend invites you to lunch on a regular Tuesday. When you arrive for your lunch date, several of your closest friends are there. “We wanted to surprise you!” is their excuse. You are confused, but delighted, since you’re always wishing for more time with your girlfriends. As lunch winds down, another friend hands you a rhyming message, which leads you to believe that you have an appointment at the spa across the street—a sixty-minute massage that has been gifted to you. When you emerge, relaxed and refreshed, you find an envelope sitting on top of your clothes in your cubby. The letter inside reads: I hope this day has helped you see/I know you well and want to be/A partner who cares for you tenderly. Come down the block and through the arbor for tea. Don’t be late. I love you, Me.
At that moment you know who must have orchestrated these last few fabulous hours of your life. Flushed, you hurry down the block, into the botanical garden. It’s fifteen minutes to closing time—the ticket taker seems to know something’s up—and instead of taking your money she ushers you toward the teahouse, where your dearly beloved is sitting alone at a small table. He stands only to take one step toward you, goes down on his knee …
And what heartbreakingly beautiful bauble does he present to you? Brilliant Earth diamonds are ethically-mined in Canada, and wholly free from violence and human rights abuses. BE donates five percent of profits to the Diamonds for Africa Fund and on top of that, their gold and platinum bands (such as the one in the picture above) are made from recycled metals.
My friend Meghan, at C5 Company, works with eco-friendly materials, too, specializing in custom design services and using recycled precious metals and ethically sourced gems (both fair-trade mined and lab-grown -no mining required!). Because it’s custom, the C5 experience is also very personal and you can design a ring that’s one of a kind. Meghan’s company ensures that their jewelry has minimal social and environmental impact and has done extensive research to find the premium gem suppliers who can verify the origin of each stone. Each piece of custom jewelry made by C5 Company is one-of-a-kind and comes with a sustainability profile report. C5 will also reset old, family or vintage stones, which is another alternative to consider. Buy vintage diamond jewelry or wear the sentimentally significant diamond your mother or grandmother once wore, and you exempt yourself from investing in new mining.
And while I know I knocked the little blue box, these days, Tiffany & Co. deals exclusively with suppliers who source socially and environmentally sound stones; and revised code at Zale Corporation specifically requires all Zales Jewelers’ suppliers to guarantee that the diamonds and diamond-containing jewelry they provide to Zale are conflict free.
