SWP Episode 010
On today’s episode we have Alex Koch. Alex is part of the team at GMG Jewellers here in Saskatoon. GMG Jewellers has been a part of Saskatoon for 35 years. They are locally owned and operated. So many of our own clients have chosen Alex and her team for engagement and wedding rings, and everyone raves about the experience. Join us as we discuss engineered diamonds, trends, and the GMG experience.
Transcription of the episode can be found below the photos.
Show links:
GMG Jewellers Website https://www.gmgjewellers.com/
GMG Jewellers Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gmgjewellers
TRANSCRIPT
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Matt: Hello, you are listening to The Sask Wedding Podcast. If you're a bride to be, or just love weddings, we created this show just for you. I'm your host, Matt Ramage. I'm the owner of MJ&Co. Stories, a photography and film company based in Saskatoon. On today's episode, we have Alex Koch. Alex is part of the team at GMG Jewellers here in Saskatoon.
GMG Jewellers has been a part of Saskatoon for 35 years. They're locally owned and operate. So many of our own clients have chosen Alex and her team for engagement and wedding rings and everybody - and I mean everybody - raves about the experience. Thanks for being here, Alex.
Alexandria: Thank you so much for having me, Matt.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Matt: I'm excited. Getting engaged is like that first part of the whole marriage experience and it's very exciting for couples and very
Alexandria: magical, actually.
Matt: And you're part of this origin story. This is like the first step and the engagement ring is the centerpiece of that tradition.
I remember when I got engaged I remember getting in the ring and buying it and having it in my pocket. And I basically gave it to my wife within four hours. That's a very common
Alexandria: Actually
Matt: they're like waiting, they order some custom ring in and then
Alexandria: the cat they're so excited. You just, the nerves.
Excitement is so electrifying. I just, I'm so excited for them. I'm literally vibrating and usually jumping up and down before COVID, I'm hugging people like I'm like, I love it. I love every minute of it.
Matt: Awesome. Side note, what's the most expensive engagement ring you've ever sold.
Alexandria: Ah, me personally, man, she was a beauty.
So it wasn't necessarily the biggest diamond I've ever sold, but it was definitely the prettiest. So we carry a brand called hearts on fire and they cut the world's most perfectly cut diamond. So that means that when they cut the diamond, every ounce of light that goes into it literally comes back out to your eyes and they sparkle.
Like a disco ball. It's crazy. The ring was $128,000 in applied
Matt: Canadian. So it's it's better than American, but
Alexandria: it was beautiful. It was absolute stunner. I love it. I still have a picture of it on my phone. I loved it that much.
Matt: And the H how long you mind me asking how long ago? This was two years ago.
Okay. So recent. Okay. Cause if this was like 10, 20 years ago, then that ring would probably. Way more now. Yeah. Awesome. What like, so you've done this for awhile. You GMG has been part of Saskatoon. And it's the one and only store. It's not a franchise for 35 years and you've worked there for awhile
Alexandria: 22 of those 35 years.
I know. I'm so young. It's hard
Matt: to believe. So you started when you were 10, obviously. I was wondering if you could share what's changed with that buying experience over the last 22. Yes.
Alexandria: I would say in the beginning, when I first started there, you would meet the guy. He would come in, maybe with his mom, maybe with a friend or a sister.
He never met the girlfriend and you had to try and figure out what kind of ring he wanted to get for her. Then he would give it to her. And that was it. Maybe she came in and got it sized afterwards, but you never got to meet them as a couple. You met him. He gave her the ring and you maybe got to meet her.
Maybe you didn't. Maybe they came back for their wedding bands, just
Matt: if they had a size
Alexandria: that or something like, and now fast forward to now, and now it's an experience. Like it's a true experience. The girls will come in with their friends and their moms. There'll be a party of four or five and we're all trying on rings and getting ideas, making wishlists, and then either I'll send the wishlist to the girl or we'll send it right to the guy.
Cause they usually they've talked about getting married and. And then he'll come in on his own terms when he's ready and we help him build the dream ring that she's going to love. So he can go into a proposal, just totally confident that she's going to love out 100%. So she
Matt: knows that rings coming. And so the only thing left for the surprise is when that's
Alexandria: right.
Couples before usually you got engaged, got married, then bought a house, then had kids. Now they've gone to university. They've been working for four or five years. They've bought a house. They renovated a house. Maybe they have kids, maybe they don't have kids and now they're getting married and if they've
Matt: renovated a house and survived, then,
Alexandria: then they're going to make it forever.
Matt: It's gonna, it's gonna be okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. So you have you have people coming in and shopping now, you, I was on your website, you sell, and I know you sell brands. Do you want to talk about brands? And I saw you, you do create custom jewelry. Tell me like what's the options people can.
Today for the, for engagement rings. Yeah. We're
Alexandria: modern, but old school. I like to say, because a lot of jewelry stores, they don't have a jeweler. An actual Goldsmith on-site stuff gets sent out. So our Goldsmiths work in-house all of our work gets done in our showroom. So if you need a repair all the way to an absolute custom engagement, Combination, we can do it from start to finish and you get to be part of the process, but then we also carry the industry's probably most recognized and sought after brands.
So like Tacori is very well-known. They're like the Louis Vuitton of jewelry them, and we don't carry Tiffany's, but it would be in that caliber of jewelry name. And then we have Simon G hearts on fire.
Matt: I think Tucker is the most recognizable to me as a guy like those blue boxes and yeah, I love them.
Yeah.
Alexandria: And the up and coming Canadian superstar gnome, Carver, we've been working with him for five or six years now. He's won several awards in the industry and his designs are unbelievable and that's just Canadian and he's Canadian. It doesn't happen too often in the bridal industry that a Canadian breaks out in the bridal category.
So engagement rings and wedding bands and becomes globally recognized for his work. And he's Canadian is really cool. So we're so happy to have him as part of the GMG family.
Matt: That's awesome. Yeah. And so a couple comes in and they can shop around. C, whatever, if they have an idea in mind that you don't have, you can make that happen right in house.
That's right. That's pretty cool. So then I know with my wedding ring experience, this is 15 years ago, actually this month hoppy anniversary for 16. Yeah. 15, 15 years ago. I didn't get married until the summer, but I remember buying that ring and the engagement band though. Like at this ring, didn't have like a paired engagement or sorry, wedding day ring.
Yeah. And I remember having to get that custom made. So you probably sell a lot of rings like that, where you have to customize. Wedding day. I didn't even know the terms for these. Yeah. It's just
Alexandria: as wedding man. Yeah. It's just complimentary wedding band. So a lot of the designers do design a complimentary wedding band, but I would say less than 50% of the brides actually choose that rendition.
And they usually have a different idea in mind of what they would like to wear with their engagement ring. So the brands evolving over the years, especially. From 15 years ago. Yeah. There was like, you had one choice or you had to custom make something. Now I have probably over three or 400, we call them stacking bands or ladies' wedding bands that are very interchangeable.
So you can wear them with any engagement, ring style. The hardest part is picking which ones your. At least to start with.
Matt: So do you so my wife's a nurse and so she can't wear anything that holds a diamond just cause of nooks and crannies. But I got her like a gold band that separate looking back.
I wished the wedding day band was just one that she could have taken apart from the engagement ring. Do people have like certain requirements? And even if you have a partner who has a heavy duty mechanic job or some. I've heard there's other options, people getting tattooed rings or silicone rings.
Do you sell all those kinds of accessories except for
Alexandria: the tattoos? So we all, I've always liked to encourage get a real wedding band. Something made out of gold. Or platinum or a combination of the two white, yellow, or rose get a band that will grow with you over the years. That can be sized.
That can be something that you can wear when you're 80 and something you can wear when you're 40 or when you're 30. And then we have sports bands. So those bands are made out of alternative metals, like tungsten, carbide titanium, even silicone for that matter. And that can be your beat around.
Wedding band that you wear. If you're working with your hands a lot, especially the lit the laboring jobs where you might shy away from a gold ring, cause you don't want to wreck it or lose it with the gold ring. Now you get a free sports band. So you can get that band that you can wear every day.
And if you lose it or wreck it or scratch it, it doesn't matter. But when you're older, you have the band that you got married with. It's still there.
Matt: Yeah. Do you find I know. Like for myself, like typically the bride's ring is the fancy one. Do you find guys more and more are wanting fancy or rings?
Yeah,
Alexandria: I would say, yeah, there's a little pocket of those that like a little bit of diamond or at least a cool pattern or something. Intricate that makes the ring a little bit more unique or special to them. So we can, we have a wedding band company that we work with that has over a million different combinations of wedding bands.
We can put together, you can have inlaid, dinosaur bone, if you want, like actual dinosaur bone. That's pretty cool. I know. So we can make anything possible.
Matt: Let's talk about trends because trends come and go. When I got my ring and my wife got her. I remember, this is, I am dating myself 15 years.
White gold was the thing, which I don't even know what that means. I feel like it's just silver or something or played it or something. But you tell me, I don't know. I don't know any of the science behind metal and rings and diamonds. What kind of trends are we seeing? Sure.
Alexandria: I can give you the, sort of the Coles notes.
Catch me up. Sure. With gold. So in the beginning, when I first started GMG, everything was like 80% yellow, gold with just a splash of white. And then now fast forward 20 years. And I would say 80% of the showcases white gold with a split between now rose gold and yellow gold, but trending right now for the last two or three years.
And I is yellow, gold, yellow, gold is coming back full force.
Matt: How do you feel about that?
Alexandria: Are you, I love it. I love yellow gold. It's rich and luxury luxurious. It's timeless and it lasts forever. So a little bit of how white golden rose gold. All gold comes out of the ground. Yellow. There's no such thing as white gold from the ground or rose gold from the ground.
So they take that pure yellow metal and they blend it with other metals creating different colors. So with rose gold, you're going to take that pure yellow gold and blend it with some copper. And it's going to turn it. So while I have rose gold, I did
Matt: so cakes copper's like copper color, obviously.
Alexandria: So that with the yellow creates a pink, there might be other couple of special metals in there that I wouldn't be at Liberty to discuss people's there.
It's proprietary. Yeah. The blends are by designer. So each designer, some designers are a little bit more pink. Some designers rose Gold's a little bit more on the yellow side. So it just depends on their blend. And then with white gold, it's the same thing. So you take that pure yellow. And you bleach it out with other white metals, like nickel zinc.
That could be a little bit of silver or copper in there. Like we're talking very small amounts, but then they bleach out the yellow, gold creating a white gold, but white gold has a yellow undertone to it because it's not naturally a white metal, say platinum is platinum comes from the ground pure.
So it's eternally white forever requires no maintenance, no plating, no nothing. White gold. We want it to look like platinum. That's the reason why they created white gold really is that it could mimic platinum, but be less expensive than platinum was a long time ago, but they would put a plating on it to give it a even wider, brighter.
On the top side of it. So eventually that plating wears down as you wear the ring and then you're left with the natural color of yellow gold, or of white gold, which is got a yellow undertone to it. Now you can have it replated whenever you want, but it's maintenance really.
Matt: Okay. So it's like Maserati is like a cheaper Ferrari.
And white gold is a cheaper platinum that's
Alexandria: right. You get the same look, but for a less cost, but fast forward now, platinum, if you a metal watch, you like to watch the markets gold has been doing very well since COVID hate referring to COVID for everything, but it's true. And platinum is softened in price a little bit.
So now the price difference between a platinum ring in a white gold ring is not as great as it used to be. So we're having a lot more. Benefits to getting the platinum now because the price is not so restricted. It's not out of people's price ranges anymore.
Matt: I'm learning something out here which I'm liking.
Let's talk about diamonds because diamonds are a girl's best friend. Yes. And I love as a photographer, the sparkly diamonds, we have this one video actually. And just by the way it was filmed and the way the sun hit it, it actually put a little sparkle right. In the camera more than I've ever seen before.
Shouldn't have this as a hearts on fire diamond. Yeah. I shouldn't, I should go look for it and ask her, but I remember that moment and I was like, like the sparkle is what makes a diamond like very pretty. I remember when I was buying, you could buy different grades and now you can get lab grown diamonds.
So do you want to share. Yeah.
Alexandria: Yeah, absolutely. So lab grown diamonds, aren't actually a new product. They're just more popular now than where they were five or six years ago. And the price of them just like the platinum versus the white gold, the price of them has also softened making them a more realistic item for somebody who wants something bigger, but for a less.
So let's back up natural diamonds come from the ground. They're over 300 million years old. So we're talking about plant life, animal life under the earth pressure, forming carbon. That carbon turns to a crystal. We mind the crystal, it goes for processing, cutting, polishing, and voila. We have a diamond lab, grown diamonds are the same thing, but recreated in a lab setting.
So basically you take a little seed down. But it in a chamber, I just making it simple, put it in a chamber for a lack of better terms. And they grow the crystal under the same heat and pressure conditions. The earth would take 300 million years to do, but they do it in two or three days. So the grow of the crystal structure.
So chemically the same lab, grown diamond and an actual diamond chemically are the same that way. And then they cut and Polish. It just a natural diamond would be done. And while that's on them,
Matt: So can you've done this for 22 years? He said, yeah. Can you tell the difference, like by the naked eye, can you tell the, I
Alexandria: really can't, they've perfected the art of growing them so well that we actually to protect ourselves in the industry, but have had to buy very expensive equipment that we can test them in is the only way to tell the difference between a natural and a lab grown down.
Matt: And what do you think, what's your thoughts on it? Can would you, do people want a bigger diamond? If they're going to spend X amount of dollars,
Alexandria: so if you have $1 to spend and you can get a two carat diamond versus a OneCare time, and it depends on your audience, but sometimes the two carat size is going to win.
I always like to explain the benefits or any drawbacks, if there is any. To add to everything straight up front, whether you want to go white, gold or platinum, so you can make the best decision that works for you. I think there is a place for the lab grown diamonds in the market, for sure. Just there's a place for the natural diamonds.
And I think it's just very intimate with the customer, which is going to work best for them because there's no wrong choice. I don't think there's a wrong choice. It's just have all the information and make the best choice.
Matt: Now here's one other question, lab grown thing. Okay. So maybe you didn't know this is a funny story. It's about when refrigeration became popular in the U S typically they would have gotten ice from lakes and ponds and reservoirs. They couldn't make it cause they didn't have a freezer and then fruit.
So there was like a whole industry of getting nice blocks and selling them. And then they came out with refrigerators where they could actually. Fake ice. They called it, which kind of reminds me this diamond stuff. And then the market was like, this is this fake ice, the lab grown ice wasn't as good as the real ice, but the actual truth is.
You could use clean water for the F for the ice frozen in the refrigerator or the freezer or whatever. And then this, so this is well before people had fridges in their houses. But yeah, exactly. But yeah, the whole marketing thing was like, you want natural ice, not fake ice. That was back then.
Now we obviously know, and people were getting sick because the water was coming from ponds and stuff for the ice is a
Alexandria: reason why I didn't grow up in that era.
Matt: So when I think of diamonds, I kinda think of is it just like that kind of thing? And,
Alexandria: I think they're going to take over there's.
I think there's a place for both of them in the world. So if somebody wants something really specific about a diamond, like a certain color and clarity with a certain size, you can order a lab diamond, they're bountiful. That's why the price is less and there's lots of them, but they allure to a natural diamond is you're getting something as unique as your thumbprint.
There is not any two in the world that are alike. So again, it's about having all that, knowing all the options and what's available and then making the choice that's best for you.
Matt: So for a client who comes into your store and doesn't know. But they want what's the most, like where do people start?
Or what's the most common question people start with? I like
Alexandria: to start with, do you have any inspiration? Has she sent you any inspiration on anything that she likes weather and I just one question at a time it's really just about uncovering what they already know and they guys know way more than. Then they admit sometimes they I'll be like, do you know her finger size?
And they might not say no at first, but then it was like, oh, she was trying on some of her friends rings and they said it was this size. So she's probably closer. And then. Girls have Pinterest and there's Instagram and they're always sending pictures back and forth. So I start with inspiration. Give me something that inspired your girlfriend.
What does she like? And then we start from there and then I show him similar styles and we talk lots. I really like to get to know my clients. I want to know how they met what their love story is. What they're planning on doing in the future where they work now? Cause I stopped them. I just like to know about them and their personality.
Is she a nurse? Is she not a nurse? Like your wife, nurses, can't always wear their rings to work depending on, I think maybe where you work in the hospital or what field of nursing you're working in. So you have to take all these things into account when you're helping them pick the perfect ring, if they didn't already come in together.
Matt: And then you go from there, if I'm assuming some people. Don't have any clue. You just start, just ask them what they like to do. Sweat
Alexandria: coming into the store. I love it. I love the nervous excitement the guy takes when he walks in. And you can tell he's never been into a jewelry store before, and he's maybe a little bit nervous and a little bit shy.
So I always try to make it fun and exciting and get people laughing and talking like I'm very comical. I, my hands are always flailing around in the air. I like it to make it super fun so that they're really comfortable coming in. Anytime they want. If they have any questions, they can reach out, they can text, email, call anytime they want and can ask lots of questions.
Matt: Thanks. More intimidating going in by, in lingerie, but or buying a wedding ring,
Alexandria: I've gone laundry shopping with guys on request because they don't know what to do. And I would say. Bras and panties might be more intimidating to be honest with you because there's there's too many things to know.
And, but if you get a really good. I associate at a store that really knows their stuff and knows how to nurture those guys. The experience can be so great. He'll be doing it all the time. I think it really depends on where you go sometimes. So
Matt: people come in nervous and then they leave. What's your goal before
Alexandria: fiving usually?
That's good. Yeah, the goal is to get the perfect ring for the girl. So he looks like a superstar she's happy and they can. Move forward with their lives. And for me, it's just the beginning, because then we get to talk about wedding bands and then anniversary gifts. And then if they have children like chill presents for the children.
Oh, I just, I love the whole love story. I've had couples. Okay. Tell me your favorite. Where I help the couple get engaged. 20 years ago, fast forward, been married for 20 years. Kids are now 1920 and they're coming in, looking at engaged rings with their boyfriends and girls. And then I'm selling them. I'm helping the parents pick out the perfect 20 year anniversary gift.
Like how cool is that to be a part of their family and those. For the last 20 years, do
Matt: you ever forget a ring? Like when they walk in and you see their finger sparkling, you know it,
Alexandria: do I have an uncanny, the colada that I've a Rolodex in the back of my brain at work and they'll just show me a picture of a ring and all it'll all come back.
I'll be like, I know when they got it, I'll usually know some detail about their life. If they have kids or not, where they work, maybe where they got married. I don't know why, but it just seems to trigger my filing cabinet back there and I can just pull their file forward and be like, yep, I got it. I love it though.
I really, this is what I was meant to do. And I'm so happy to have been able to have found GMG and they, and grow with them and be with that store. Cause it's.
Matt: I think that's a pretty cool Testament to just the industry and what you like, the part you have played in it. And I'm sure that has contributed to.
All of our clients, who've gone there. Just loving you and the team and yeah, like that, you
could
Alexandria: probably relate. You love what you do. You can see it in the way you talk about your, about, I don't even call it work, but what you get to do every day for a living, your couples that you remember, it probably doesn't take much to trigger a memory from a photo shoot from a wedding you did 10 years ago.
Matt: No, I remember the day. Yeah. And I'll
Alexandria: remember weather and the setting and, yeah. See, so it's. If you're lucky enough to go shopping somewhere and you meet somebody who's that passionate about their job, it makes a world of
Matt: difference. Yeah. I have a couple who's had COVID issues as far as rescheduling and everything.
And now. There were wedding was in 2020. Now they want it. They still want to do the reception. Everybody else who's planned to do a secondary reception has what's the word? Basically decided not to they're like, the first wedding was actually fine. I don't need the second one.
Or the second reception this anyway, we have a couple anyways. We're at like three years since they booked us 2022. It's two years since they got married and finally we're doing it. And they're just like so thrilled that we're able to be part of it all. And she messaged me, I think it was yesterday.
And she said the photos we got of her grandpa were the last photos of him. And it's pretty special to just be able to play those parts, even in a pandemic and get different parts of the day. And I don't know, tell that story of a couple, I could rant about this all day, but I
Alexandria: remembered there's very few things that are tangible items.
Carry a motion, jewelry, triggers, emotion, pictures, trigger emotion, songs, trigger emotion. There's very few things out there that if you have grandma's ring, that's been passed on for a hundred years. It's so special. And then your pictures, my favorite things about getting married. And I just want to say this for the industry is I don't like to tell people where to spend their money, but at the end of the day, you have three things left your photo.
Good. Good photos. Those are your memories. You get old and things you don't remember. You can look back at your photos and the memories come back in your rings
and then a nice dress for the girls. Sorry, girls, but a nice dress is important.
Matt: Everybody's looking at the bread. Not like that. When it comes to rings and stuff, let's talk about like longevity. This is just like a side question. Do people ever come back? Ring, it's a 25 year anniversary or 50 year anniversary, and maybe they got a ring that was like, maybe it was even grandma's ring and they want to propose to their fiance with it.
Do you ever redesign, but use the original metals and diamonds or remake an old ring as like a renewal gift or something?
Alexandria: I've done a lot of restore jobs where we take the original ring and build it up. If it's been worn lots, which that's meant to do the cool thing is that we can add more gold and metal to it and build it up and make it look like it was new again.
Or we can do a minimal facelift on it and try to keep the integrity and as much the same, but just strengthen it in areas. Or we've done a whole redesign where we pull the diamonds out, put them into a more modern setting, but you still have grandma's diamond and mom's diamond in your. It just depends on the direction that the couple wants to go.
Matt: Now, when I got married, I was dirt poor. I was 21. I was 20 when I bought the ring, my wife definitely. It's become boozier over the last decade and a half. Can you go too big with the diamond? She would love a
Alexandria: bigger, okay. This is my golden rule. Okay. The guys don't know what to do if they're debating versus this or that.
In my experience, I can only speak for, I've never had a girl bring back her ring because it was too big. The diamond was too big, but I have had girls bring back a diamond because it was too. Just going to throw that out there.
Matt: And I'm assuming before the wedding day they just, do you actually just swap out the ringer?
Do you actually switch to the diamond or?
Alexandria: Yeah, so it depends on the situation. If I, if she wants a bigger diamond, they'll come in and I'll take the original diamond back and we'll. Do the difference to the bigger diamond if that's what we want, it happens less and less now because couples are way more communicate, way more about getting married and talk about engagement rings now ahead of time than what they used to do a long time ago.
So you see a little bit less of that, but every once in a while, maybe it's a they're in school still, and they're going to get engaged in. They didn't have as much money, but then by the time they're getting married, if it's a year or two later by the fifth anniversary, he's often wants to upgrade her ring.
Matt: Something happens. Yeah. I'm like it's in the back of my mind. I should get it. I'd love an upgrade. I'm not sure when it will happen. I'm going to, I know where to go. I already know. It's GMG, if you didn't know if you could tell every couple of months. When they're starting this process or everything, every couple should something every couple should know, starting before they even start looking online or shopping around.
Well,
Alexandria: by the golden rule, communicate with each other. If you have expectations or don't have expectations, but be genuine about, I don't care, you get me, I'm going to love anything. Then she really will. Or if you have, I really like an oval shape or an Emerald cut shape, just voice what you like, guys are they're listening.
They want to get you something you're happy with. Where this ring, hopefully for the rest of your life, it should be something you love. I always compare it to guy. If you're going to spend 20 to $60,000 on a video, On a truck you're going to drive every day. Would you send your wife
Matt: for only five to 10 years?
That's
Alexandria: right. It brings last way longer. I'm just saying anyway, you wouldn't go send like your wife usually to go pick out the truck, spend the money, and then you have to drive it. What if she didn't pick the options that you wanted or the color you wanted, so communicate with each other. Yeah. And then at least for our GMG, we really do our best to communicate with you and find all those answers so we can make the perfect.
We don't want her to be disappointed.
Matt: And the whole point at the end of this is it's a token of love. It's a token of
Alexandria: it's a momentum. It's the engagement ring is the intention of marriage and your wedding band is the commitment. That's how Maximillian when he was. That's how engaged your rings started with Maximillian proposed to, I think it's Amelia.
I'm rusty on her name. Anyway, he had a ring made for her, with her initial on it and to be troll for gave her this ring. And that's what started indirectly. He didn't know it at the time, but that's what started the engagement ring process fast forward 2000 years. And here we are, but yeah, Maximillian gave a ring with an initial on it, to the love of his life to secure her, like to show her I want to be with you forever.
And then while I hear we have engagement rings and wedding band. That's pretty cool. The history of jewelry is unbelievable.
Matt: It is. It is funny that we put, I love the idea of these momentos of life. And like I look at my wife's ring and I look at my own even, and I. It is not even about the metal or the diamonds.
It's about what it meant and how it actually, for me, it meant for me to buy my wife's ring at the time was like, it was the most expensive thing I think I bought at the time and cars
Alexandria: and rings,
Matt: expensive things. Yeah. I'm sure if I was to do it again today, like if I've met my wife yesterday and was going to propose like, that was a significant piece of my income side note, do you have.
Is there any rules on how much you should spend or is it just as much as you want?
Alexandria: There was something said years ago that is three months salary, but it's really not a realistic thing mostly because how big a ring do you really want? We're talking some people, if you spent three months salary on a ring, the ring would be so huge.
I don't even know if anybody would wear it. Like you would just wouldn't be realistic at that point. So I think it just has to be a comfortable amount. I don't need anybody to go without eating because they need to buy a ring, but,
Matt: but it's just the gesture of it. And yeah, I love, I like, I love the idea of these little pieces in life that, they just become something so special.
Like grandma's ring. It has nothing to, it's probably the smallest written diamond you've ever seen.
Alexandria: Usually it is, but it's the fact that you saw your grandma wearing that ring and then you saw your mom wearing that ring. And now you get to wear that ring. I have a ring like that. My grandma recently passed in December and I was really close to her.
And I have this little Ruby ring that she wore on her pinky. And it was one of the things that I got to keep after grandma passed. It's the most precious rank to me in the whole world, because I grew up watching her wear that ring. I always asked to try it on when I was a little kid and she would indulge me and now I get to have it as my own.
And then maybe pass it on one day, myself.
Matt: That sounds beautiful. I think that might be it today for us, if that's okay. We've got one minute left. One minute left. I do want to ask about accessories. Do Brad's should they get a little pair of diamond earrings or something for their wedding day?
Or do you sell the whole thing? We can, we
Alexandria: should. We sure can. You can do a lot of guys have come in on the wedding day in the morning in a mad panic, not knowing they're supposed to buy their bride a gift. So again, communication, I can't stress that enough. It doesn't always have to be jewelry.
I know I should be blogging jewelry, but I think depending on. Where do you want to be at eye jewelry is a really great gift cause she's going to have it forever. And she's, I got this as my wedding gift. These were my wedding earrings, whether or not she wears them on her wedding day because she might have that all sorted out already is fine.
But a token to commemorate the day that's is moving forward. Regardless if you're going to get her doesn't matter, laundry or diamonds or a necklace or bracelet pearls, a very popular it's a very
Matt: Brides like gifts. Is that what you're saying?
Alexandria: What I'm saying? We've even hand delivered gifts to her bride in her hotel suite getting ready on behalf of the guy.
So he had it arranged and we run it over there and surprise her with a gift on their wedding day. It's like we do so many cool things. Just ask us, we've got lots of ideas. We've done. Lots of things. We have bridal events.
Matt: Let's tell us what's the best way to shop for you? Did you do, can we just come into the shop I saw on your website, you had to do a one-on-one appointments now.
You said they're not going anywhere. So tell me
Alexandria: why. Yeah. So you can book an appointment if you've never come to the store before, and you just want to come at a certain time and make sure that somebody is free, you can schedule a one-on-one. From our website you can text us. You can email us walking in is still, probably the most popular.
If you're downtown, just pop. We have wedding band events, bridal events. We do all kinds of things throughout the year that, we had to help save you some money too.
Matt: Awesome. I'm excited. Definitely go check out Alex and the team on Instagram. What was your Instagram handles again?
Alexandria: So ours is just @GMGJewellers
Matt: and then yours is @GMGgirl. Yeah. Yeah. You can see some really beautiful stuff on Instagram. I see the sparkle all the time. It always stops me in my tracks. GMG is amazing. I'm going to plug a thing they do for the last few years that you can win a honeymoon.
And one of our clients actually won it this past year. So their bank they're banking it, they can't travel right now, but they're the bank banking. So when they're ready, we're ready. Yeah. So exciting. So exciting. Thanks so much for being here on the show, Alex. Thank you so much for privileged to have you and learn a little bit about this experience.
Yeah. Okay. We'll chat soon.
Alexandria: Sounds good.
