Viral Facebook Post Gives Love To 'Pathetic' Wedding Ring Wearers Everywhere

Woman on Facebook inspires others with post about inexpensive wedding ring

When Ariel McRae and her now-husband, Quinn, went ring shopping, they knew they weren’t going to be browsing in the $50,000-25-carat-give-me-all-the-diamonds section. But after a store employee made a nasty comment about the rings they were looking at, McRae hit Facebook to defend her rings and remind everyone that it’s the feeling behind them that’s important, not the price tag.

In her post, McRae tells the story of how she and her husband met. She says that they fell in love so quickly that she would have married him after their first date, but they decided to wait so they could “get established beforehand.” After two years of saving up money, they decided that they didn’t want to wait anymore, so they went to the courthouse and eloped.

It’s a crazy sweet story. In fact, everything about this is beyond all things sweet until one insensitive ring store employee (we’re going with “insensitive” but other words would work there, too) wandered over to where the McRaes were in the process of buying her ring set. According to McRae, the woman looked at the rings they were choosing from and said, “Y’all can you believe that some men get these as engagement rings? How pathetic.”

We don’t know if that was her way of trying to shame them into looking at more expensive rings or if she was just a heartless nimrod, but regardless, it’s an incredibly shitty thing to say. McRae’s husband, who was about to buy her a $130 sterling silver and cubic zirconia ring set from Pandora, got embarrassed. “He already felt like a failure, asking me again and again ‘Are you sure you’ll be happy with these? Are you sure this is okay?'” wrote McRae, “He was so upset at the idea of not making me happy enough.”

Ariel, who would have been justified in opening up a can of may-I-please-talk-to-your-manager on that employee, instead said, “It isn’t the ring that matters, it is the love that goes into buying one that is.” She and her husband bought their rings, and flounced.

McRae posted a picture of her rings, which she says she absolutely loves, and ended with the following message: “Y’all I would have gotten married to this man if it had been a 25¢ gum ball machine ring…My husband was so afraid of me not wanting him because he couldn’t afford a piece of jewelry. He was afraid that the love I have for him would pale because he couldn’t afford the wedding set I wanted. But here I am though, Court-House married, $130 ring set, the love of my life by my side and happier than I could ever imagine.”

McRae’s post has now been shared over 45,000 times on Facebook, and has hundreds of comments from people posting photos of their own cheap and cherished rings and sharing their love stories. Her post is also inspiring others in an amazing and unexpected way. McRae told Scary Mommy that “some [people] even have said that I have given them the courage to just go ahead and propose or get married. All my life I have always said I just want to help one person. If I could help one person my life will have meant something. Now I have thousands of messages coming in saying how much I have helped them.”

We love the McRaes, we love her rings, and we love all the cheap and “pathetic” rings out there that were purchased with nothing more than a little bit of money and a whole lot of love.