Show Off Your Bling- Hosting My First Link Up

Happy Friday, friends!  It's time to Show Off Your Bling!

While it is always fun to see some sparkly, pretty things, in writing this post I realized that the items I'm going to share with you are so much more than that.  They are constant reminders of wonderful times in my life, people I love and how I will forever be connected to them.  So without further adieu, here is my bling!

Mr. Banker popped the question on August 11, 2002.  Even though I was only 20, we had been dating for almost four years and I was getting impatient.  We wouldn't get married until after graduation, but I wanted a ring before starting my Junior year.  I was ready to be engaged and to start wedding planning!  I felt like he kept me hanging all Summer.  I wasn't even completely sure it was going to happen when we started off on our camping trip to Linville Gorge, NC.  Obviously I said yes, but I'm going to spare you any of those engagement day pictures- second day hair after camping in August is not the prettiest sight.
 
We hadn't shopped for rings together.  I was expecting a simple round solitaire--the shape I had told him I liked best.  Like the smart man he is, he listened.  But after picking the stone that fit his standards, he chose this setting with baguettes on the sides, because he thought it looked like me.  He was right!  I adore it and have never wanted to change anything about my ring.  I love it as much as I did the day he gave it to me!

There is one other precious ring in my life, and it reminds me of the four amazing years I spent at Meredith College.  
 

I received my "Meredith Ring," as most people call them, in October of my Junior Year.  This Onyx ring is a BIG deal.  

The ring design was introduced in 1953 and has been the same since.  You can spot a Meredith girl by her ring.  With oak leaves on the sides to represent the City of Raleigh and the college seal engraved on top, it is timeless and classic.

"Ring Week" on campus is an exciting time.  The rings arrive on Monday for pickup in the student center.  You get to try it on one time to make sure it fits and then you're not supposed to put it on again until Friday night at your class Ring Dinner. (But everyone knows you sneak into the bathroom to try it on just one more time while your roommate is in class.)

The week is filled with fun events like car raids, theme days and other fun sisterhood-type stuff (where you take eighty million pictures.)

At Ring Dinner you get to finally to put on your rings as a class, celebrate your new bling with your Besties, and take as many different pictures as you can arrange with your hands posed.

Then after just *one more* picture, you hear something behind you...

like an ice sculpture melting and about to hit you in the back of the head.  Y'all, I'm not sure I have ever laughed so hard as when Bestie and I had to catch that thing.  Notice the paparazzi in the background....everyone had to have a picture of this too!

At graduation you turn your ring around from the seal pointing to you to instead pointing out to the world.  When your friends get married you take pictures with your rings at their weddings.  When you spot someone wearing one you just walk right up and talk to them. It's unique to a special group of women and it always makes me smile thinking of those amazing memories.

I enjoyed reminiscing and sharing these special stories about my bling.  I hope many of you will do the same and link up below!