Tennessee bride proudly shows off $130 rings

MARTIN, Tenn. — It’s not the cost of the wedding ring that’s important. What the ring symbolizes is what marriage is about.

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That was the message from a Tennessee woman, whose Facebook post about her $130 wedding rings went viral. Ariel Desiree McRae shared a photo of her rings, given to her by her husband, Quinn.

“My husband doesn't have a lot, neither of us do,” McRae wrote on Facebook. “We scrape and scrape to pay bills and put food in our bellies.”

So the couple saved up some money and went to buy two matching sterling rings.

“That’s what sits on my ring finger, and I am so in love with them,” she wrote.

As a saleswoman helped the couple choose rings, another associate came over to help. What she said didn’t sit well with Ariel.

“She said, ‘Y’all can you believe that some men get these as engagement rings? How pathetic,’” Ariel wrote on Facebook.

Quinn McRae’s face dropped at the comment, but Ariel picked his spirits back up.

“Y’all I would have gotten married to this man if it had been a 25-cent gumball machine ring,” she wrote.

Ariel McRae’s post went viral, and when some social media posters questioned the validity of her story about the clerk, she returned to Facebook to explain.

“I would just like to add something for the people who think it is false that this woman said this. It's not. She went on to say, "My boyfriend has already saved up 30K for my rings and he has just started."

Baffling, yes I know. It really happened though. I'm not telling any of you what city I bought these in because I don't want that lady to lose her job. She wasn't rude when she said her comment, or at least she wasn't trying to be. She just thought we would laugh along with her and tell her she was right. She wasn't.”

The couple eloped at a courthouse.

“Here I am,” she wrote. “Courthouse married, $130 ring set, the love of my life by my side and happier than I could ever imagine.”

Cox Media Group