Abby Bucco doesn’t really like to wear jewelry.
The 27-year-old fashion merchandiser is known among her friends and family for having a unique fashion sense — but jewelry plays only a small role. It’s not something she wears every day.
Still, she realized a few years ago that when it came time to get engaged, she’d go big.
“I was never going to have something that everyone else had,” she said.
Speaking with Business Insider, Bucco shared her proposal story, the background of her vintage ring, and a response to online critics who say they hate it.
Abby Bucco met her partner, Chris, in college through mutual friends.
Although Bucco attended Fordham University in New York City, she grew up in Philadelphia and had friends who attended Penn State University.
Through them, she met Chris. He liked her immediately, but Bucco was dating someone else.
Still, the stars were aligned. In 2020, they’d both graduated from college, and Chris had moved to New York City, where a newly single Bucco was still living.
They reconnected and began dating in June 2021.
The couple got engaged in November, and Bucco was shocked.
Bucco said she and Chris, a 28-year-old working in tech sales, would regularly talk about getting engaged. Still, she had no idea a proposal was actually coming.
“We just signed our fourth lease together, so I’m always making jokes, like, ‘When are you going to propose?'” she said.
The answer turned out to be an unexpected one: his birthday on November 8. Bucco was under the impression that they’d be getting drinks with friends that afternoon before going to a birthday dinner with his siblings.
“I was running late as always, and he kept trying to rush me out of the apartment,” Bucco said. “Then we started walking, and I made him take pictures of me multiple times because I do influencing on the side. He was freaking out the entire time, but I had no idea what was going on.”
She realized, though, when he suddenly stopped walking and got down on one knee.
“I was so in shock that I said, ‘No, no, not today,'” Bucco said.
Friends and family gathered secretly to celebrate the couple’s special day.
Her fiancé’s sisters were hiding in a patch of bushes to take photos of the couple, while two of Bucco’s closest friends stood nearby, and her parents waited a little farther away.
Together, the newly engaged couple and their loved ones attended a celebratory dinner.
“His parents came as well to surprise me,” Bucco said.
Together, they celebrated the couple’s engagement and, of course, Chris’ birthday.
Bucco’s fiancé had one more celebration up his sleeve.
“After dinner, we went to a bar, which was another surprise,” Bucco said. “Chris had most of my friends who live in New York waiting there to surprise me.”
Everyone dressed in chic black outfits, and the couple drank from custom bride and groom glasses.
The star of the night was Bucco’s engagement ring.
As Bucco told Business Insider, she’d never been super excited about getting engaged because she didn’t like most engagement rings.
Her mind changed a few years ago, though, when her father bought her mother an anniversary piece from Wilson’s Estate Jewelry in Philadelphia.
She became enamored with the store’s diamond cocktail jewelry and even found her dream ring. It sold long before Bucco was thinking about getting engaged, and she was devastated.
This past summer, though, a new piece caught her eye.
“I was at dinner with Chris and my mom, and I got an ad on Instagram for a new ring at Wilson’s,” Bucco said. “I showed them and was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing.'”
“They were freaking out because they had already talked to Wilson’s about buying that exact ring,” she added. “My mom had found it a few days before.”
The vintage, 1950s piece features numerous diamonds in the shape of two intertwined flowers.
Wilson’s Estate Jewelry, which sold the ring to Bucco’s fiancé, states on its website that the piece features numerous diamonds, including center stones that weigh about 1.45 and 1.70 carats, a platinum band, and a coiled bypass shape.
When her fiancé proposed with it, Bucco said she was thrilled.
“Once I saw that ring [online], I didn’t want anything else. That was the ring,” she said. “I loved it even more in person. The pictures honestly don’t do it justice.”
Bucco’s dad didn’t initially love the ring, but he came around.
When Bucco’s mom first came across the engagement ring online, she sent her husband to check it out at the store.
“My dad did not like it at all,” Bucco said. “He thought it was ridiculous and would be way too big for my hand. He didn’t want to get it.”
So he didn’t. The store instead held onto the ring so that Bucco’s mom could see it herself.
She loved it, and so did Bucco’s fiancé.
“He knows I have a really particular taste,” Bucco said about her fiancé. “He said that if I think it’s cool, then it’s cool. And he knows that my mom knows me well.”
The same goes for the rest of her friends and family.
“They all love it,” Bucco said. “And if any of them don’t love the ring, they love it for me.”
Online, critics have been harsh — but Bucco doesn’t care.
When Bucco first posted photos of her engagement ring online, the reactions from friends and strangers alike were positive.
After a day, though, Bucco had been inundated with harsh criticisms. Some said the piece looked like a fidget spinner or a can opener. Others questioned if it was even her real engagement ring.
“Some of the comments are so weird,” Bucco said. “They’ll be like, ‘Good luck changing diapers in this!’ and I’m like, ‘OK. I wasn’t planning on changing a diaper anytime soon, or wearing a ring while changing one.'”
In fact, Bucco doesn’t even plan to wear her ring every day.
“People are very concerned that it’s a cocktail ring,” she said, “But it’s just not a concern of mine. Any ring, even a plain band, I wouldn’t wear every day. I don’t like having jewelry on that much.”
Bucco’s most viral posts about her engagement ring have between 3.4 and 6.1 million views each on TikTok. Bucco said the virality — good and bad — has been fun to experience.
“Even when there are 10 negative comments, there are also 10 positive comments and 10 super nice girls in my DMs on Instagram,” she said.
It also helps that she now has the ring (and man) of her dreams.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post This bride-to-be doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry. Her mom and fiancé picked a massive, cocktail engagement ring for her anyway. appeared first on Business Insider.
