Fred & Adriana

How they met

It was very hard for both of us to find someone we could feel comfortable with. We are both from other countries, Adriana immigrated from Romania when she was 7 and I from Sweden when I was 7. We both were looking for someone who had traveled and had a progressive view point, something that can be difficult in the mid-west. On my end I had been married before “divorced 11years” and have a 13 year old daughter but I had been building my company “Gunilla of Sweden,Inc. Organic Skin Care” for the last 6 years. I don’t drink and work to much to really go meet people in regular social circumstance.

I had considered Internet dating but was hesitant because I am also a T9 paraplegic since the age of 12 from a motorcycle accident and saw no other paras on these sites. Being in a chair for 32 years I know it helps to meet face to face to break through any preconceived negative ideas that can exist concerning people in chairs. I dreaded trying to explain my situation on an Internet site. But I finally wrote a biography and tried eHarmony, within a week I found Adriana’s profile. Adriana had also worked hard as a daughter of a Ford motors engineer in Detroit she put herself through pre-med scooping ice cream in the cafeteria. Later she graduated med school did her residency in Columbia Mo and worked as a vascular physician in Kansas City. Adriana and I have such respect and admiration for each other that we new we were more than perfect as a couple. We talked every day on the phone for 2 weeks then I picked her up at her house for our first date and we just looked at each other and laughed knowing that we both finally found what we both had waited so many years.

The proposal

Since we were both professionals in our 40’s didn’t need anyone’s approval. Neither of us wanted to date we wanted to never date again so we knew early on that we would get married eventually. I told Adriana too look out for the day. But I had to know what her taste was in rings so three months back I asked her to look at rings and she didn’t know when to expect a proposal but I knew the answer would be yes. Adriana is a woman of incredible style and very fashionable and the last thing she wanted was a tall solitaire that so many other women already have. She wears rubber gloves since she’s a physician during procedures so she needed a no prong invisible set type ring and I knew it needed to look like a million bucks to match her style and personality. We had gone on 3 vacations in our first year together Jamaica in Nov Maui in March and Sweden my childhood home this July. She would have expected a proposal during these trips so I made sure not to do it then.

I asked her if I could pick her up at the clinic she works last Monday for lunch she got in the car and I drove around the parking lot and parked again. That’s when I gave her the ring and asked her, she hugged me so hard I could hardly breath, this Simon G ring had a box with a light in it so you can give the ring in the dark. I also know she is close friends with the nurses and doctors she works with and she would want to share this experience with those she works every day with. She wend back to the clinic an hour later everyone could see in her eyes and the ring on her finger she was proposed to. So Adriana was able to share this with her friends she works with every day and the staffs happiness met so much to her as well. Even her patience that afternoon could see their doctor has just gotten engaged and they adore their doctor so again she was able to share the experience.

The engagement ring

It had to be one of a kind ring and I searched for months. Bride magazine did an article Over the top engagement rings there are more choices than solitaires. Ring number 6 was a Simon G MR2016 and it looked like a $200k ring it had more fire than any ring I had ever seen. But I couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally the largest Simon G dealer was Kranichs in PA and Rachel Robb found the ring with the Simon G sales rep he actually had one. It was perfect 3.7 carats of colorless fire in 18k white gold.

And she can wear her surgical gloves on top of the ring she also runs her hand through hair and doesn’t want prongs to catch hair so an invisible set diamond ring was very important and only Simon G had a ring like that.