Obie and Alexa met 5 years ago, at a local night spot in Port Pirie.
Fast forward to December 2018, the pair got engaged on their first overseas trip to Bali. Obie worked closely with the designer, Cassandra to design a spectacular Pear engagement ring.
The platinum claw set ring features a colourless pear diamond halo. The ring is finished with an 18ct rose gold knife edge band and bead set diamonds. Breathtaking is an understatement!
With their engagement party around the corner, we caught up with Obie as he shares with us his sweet proposal to Alexa.
How did you both meet?
Alexa and I met 5 years ago at a local nightspot, the Family Hotel in Port Pirie.
She had tried her hand at Uni in Adelaide but had returned home to study externally and was out for the night with her friends.
I had played footy that day and was out with the lads. I was uncharacteristically wearing a red baseball cap that night because I had run out of hair product earlier in the day.
While quietly going about my night chatting away with a mutual friend, my hat was audaciously stolen right off my head.
I turned to see this gorgeous girl with beautiful eyes and a cheeky grin proudly wearing it.
It took some negotiating to retrieve it, but before I could get her name and number we were interrupted and lost each other.
The following day I used my best investigative Facebook skills to find out who this girl was and sent her a message.
I still look back and think about how lucky I was to run out of hair clay that day!
Share with us your engagement story.
We had planned our first overseas trip to Bali for December 2018.
At a family dinner, Alexa's cousin had joked that I should propose while we were over there. I quickly dismissed it as being unrealistic and Alexa laughed it off as well.
Little did they know I was already deep into planning a surprise romantic cave dinner to pop the question with the awesome people at Samabe Resort, Nusa Dua.
We were 7 days into our holiday and I'd told Lex that I had us booked in for a nice dinner somewhere.
Our driver dropped us off and after a cocktail at the bar, we were led down to the beach.
When we hit the sand our guide told us as part of the dinner we were going to be treated to a traditional Balinese dance and asked us to put on blindfolds as they were still getting prepared.
As I was in on the act I pretended to stumble along as we were set up in front of our beautifully set up private cave awaiting our non-existent performance.
With Alexa still standing there blindfolded, I got down on one knee and slid ring out of my pocket that I'd nervously been holding onto all holiday.
I'd organised a photographer from Gusmank Photography to capture the moment and on his command, Lex removed her blindfold.
To say she was shocked would be a huge understatement as she gasped at the sight of me down on my knee.
I took her hand and recited the lines that I had practised about 1000 times in my head, to which she thankfully answered a resounding YES!
Having meticulously planned up until that point, after hearing that magical three letter word all reason and calmness had gone out the window and as I jumped to my feet to give my freshly minted fiancé a hug and a kiss I'd forgotten to put the ring on her finger!
We had a few more photos taken before enjoying a three-course meal with the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach in the background capping off a truly magical moment.
What drew you to Cassandra Mamone's pieces?
I stumbled onto Cassandra's work purely by chance through a Google search of Rose Gold engagement rings!
All of her pieces looked very unique and the fact she was based in Adelaide was a huge draw as well.
Tell us all about the details of your ring, what was the process like for you, what are your favourite aspects of the piece?
Alexa had worked in jewellery for 8 years so I knew the pressure was on! I was nervous and not very jewellery literate but Veronica and Cassandra took the pressure and nerves out of the equation and were AWESOME to deal with.
Being from the country they were very accommodating with my appointments and always quick to respond to the hundreds of emails and questions I had throughout the process.
Besides the breathtaking pear centre diamond that Cassandra was able to source, my favourite aspects of the ring that really set it apart from the crowd are the knife edge band with bead set diamonds and the platinum setting.
Do you have any wedding plans yet?
We took our time to enjoy being an engaged couple and are in the midst of the planning process now.
We have our engagement party coming up in May with our eye on a wedding date early next year.
Looking forward to catching up with Cassandra and the team again to design our wedding bands in the very near future!
