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| - Marlene's shop is just lovely. And super busy on weekends, so try to come on a weekday! It's located inside of a refurbished chicken coop, but it feels like you're stepping inside of a large jewelry box. It's very, very quaint. We were helped by Marlene's assistant on a Saturday, who also happens to do all the photography for the website. It's highly recommended that you pick out a few product IDs you like online before going into the store. The assistant pulled out a bunch of two-toned retro modern (~1940s) rings for me, but ended up also pulling a single-toned white gold retro modern on intuition and that was the one my fiance and I ended up choosing.
No one ever attempted to upsell us in the Wedding-Industrial-Complex format. But it was true that some ring bands were just too tiny on my hands, proportionally (I'm tall, so my hands are proportionally larger). This opinion was stated to me by the saleswoman, and I appreciated the outside subjective honesty communicated in a cautious manner. Of course, I bet if you stood your ground on the tiny ring it'd be fine, but it wasn't really an issue for us. We didn't have much interaction with Marlene herself, but she did recommend pairing my engagement ring with a different metal wedding band, which is an interesting idea I had not thought of before.
It's really great that the selection was so vast, I had been worried my need to avoid conflict diamonds and the waste of new gold would lead me to limited options, but not at Marlene's shop. However, tastes in men's wedding bands have really changed over the years. So if you're looking for something that the modern younger groom might like, you may find better prices for simple wedding bands elsewhere. They're worth a look for their interestingness alone.
I came back to the store to retrieve my ring after re-sizing and insisted on wearing it out of the shop (we got engaged a month prior, picked out the rings together, and fiance was out of town when the ring was ready for pick-up, there was no way I was going to wait 2 more weeks to wear my ring!). I think it gave Marlene a little bit of a shock, or she was just confused about it, but she hid it fairly well.
The variety and the prices here are absolutely fantastic. Every.Possible.Price.Range. I am so, so happy I found Marlene's store. It really is quite the little gem!
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