Go for the gold!!!! What does that even mean?
My boyfriend uses that expression a lot. I have heard a few
people also use it. Their way of spurring me on, I guess. It’s one of the
expressions I’ve heard so frequently, I barely give a thought to when I hear it
now. The only problem is; I love a splash of gold sometimes on my clothes.
Sometimes, not all the time. I loathe gold on my jewelry, no matter how pretty
it makes me look. It’s just another thing about me, even I don’t understand. Unless it is white gold of course! Somewhere
in my head, I associate the word ‘gaudy’ with yellow gold.
On this particular day, since I wasn’t going for the Olympics
or even a backyard marathon, I called him out on it. And surprise of all
surprises: he got ticked off that I was a know-it-all. Where have I heard those
words before? Ah, yes. In my head, when I call him thus.
My bad though, because this time, he literally meant I should
go for the gold, as in a gold band. You see, we were ‘ring shopping’ and naturally,
I preferred the silver or white gold bands to the normal gold we know. Anything
but that yellow colour of gold! He would rather have me in yellow gold because
of how beautiful he saw one look on my finger. Maybe folks could help me out
with this one. Whom is the wedding for? Is it for the bride or the groom, or
the families or the sideline friends? Who gets the most say in how a wedding
should go?
I wasn’t expecting this at all. Before we agreed to tie the
knot, Jake, my boyfriend, I suppose I should call him my fiancé, now that I’m
wearing his promissory ring. Which is also a bit confusing. Is it a promissory
ring or an engagement ring? In Ghana, you never know. The engagement we all
know could pass for a real marriage for sure, what with all the ceremony and
all. Anyway, before we agreed to tie the knot, he gave me a ring and as one
would expect, it was gold. Yellow gold! Even though it wasn’t in my favorite colour, I loved
it. I mean, what else could I do? I wasn’t there when he was shopping for it.
You know, all this wouldn’t give me such a headache if he had
a dead grandmother somewhere whose wedding ring I could borrow, just like it’s
done in the movies.
He was the one who used to call marriage and all the ceremony
leading to it; a 'girl’s dream'. To him, it wasn’t manly to be too involved when
planning a wedding. I wish I had recorded one of those dialogues because today,
he is really trying my patience. He wants yellow gold, I want something
entirely different. I thought guys were supposed to defer to the girl’s wishes
under such circumstances, citing the ageless reason: ‘it’s the bride’s day’ as
motivation. Apparently, Jake has decided it’s his day too because he wasn’t
compromising. We have spent two hours at the jewellers already and there was
still no resolution in sight. No way was I going to spend the rest of my life
looking at a yellow band on my finger, no way!!
At some point, I suggested his band be of yellow gold, since
he seemed to like it so much and I’ll have mine in a different hue. Apparently,
it isn’t done because both bands come as a set. Well, so much for catering for
all my dreams!!!!! We had to reschedule the rings’ purchase to a latter date.
That should be fun. Doing this all over again!
For this impasse, my best friend had a wise solution for us
both. We can choose one for now and then change it in ten years time for a
different type. That seemed to calm us both and since I had already worn my
gold promissory ring for a while now, I convinced him that we go for a diamond ring in a silver
setting. Don’t tell him this, but in a decade’s time, I’ll just have to bully
him into buying us bands of my choosing again. Seriously, what does a guy care
about rings, anyways?
Now, we can go ahead and argue over the guest list.
##WEDDING HEADACHES##
Don’t know if anyone else noticed
but I did.