When Brandon Parker was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Melissa Absher, he had a to-do list of sorts.
The Spokane, Washington, man penned a song, planned a party with Absher’s family in Montana, and he ordered 100 pounds of gravel from a sapphire mine.
After pulling Absher aside at a family barbecue and proposing with a stand-in costume jewelry ring, Parker made one more promise to Absher with a 100-pound bag of Montana gravel: “Let’s go find your sapphire.”
That’s when the surprise proposal party morphed into a panning-for-sapphires party, with partygoers sifting through the gravel in search of the perfect gem for Absher’s future ring.
To the wrong person, proposing with gravel might have been met with a rebuttal to go kick rocks. For Absher, Parker’s proposal was perfect.
“I was just over-the-moon thrilled,” she said.
Proposal Party Turned Panning Party
Prior to their engagement, when the topic of marriage had come up, Absher had shared with Parker her sole requirement for a ring: “I was absolutely set on a Montana sapphire.”
In some ways, that made things easier for Parker, because there are only a few places one can procure a genuine Montana sapphire, and Absher didn’t even have a strong color preference.
Of course, Parker could have simply bought a sapphire, but what’s the fun of that?
Instead, he decided to include the couple’s family and friends in their proposal.
“Our family and friends are foundational to us as people, both individually and together, so I wanted to make sure to include them,” Parker said.
But the logistics of getting the Montana family and friends to a sapphire mine proved problematic, so Parker opted for a different approach.
He brought the mine to them by ordering 100 pounds of gravel from Gem Mountain Sapphire Mine in Phillipsburg and shipping the boxes to his future mother-in-law’s home in Great Falls.
Anyone can order gravel from the mine when in-stock; a 25-pound box costs $50, and the mine makes no guarantees about the quantity and/or quality of sapphires hiding in the gravel.
That gave everyone in the couple’s respective families and friend groups about 5 pounds each to sift through in Great Falls and once back home in Spokane.
Finding ‘The One’
While some people have to kiss a lot of frogs to find “the one,” Absher, Parker and their families and friends had to go through a lot of gravel to find “the one.”
It was Parker’s grandmother who the couple says gets the credit for finding her forever stone. She was sifting through one of the final pounds of gravel with a metal sifter when she asked to switch with Absher.
As soon as Absher took the sifter, she saw it. Sitting on top of the gravel was a very unique 4-carat sapphire that the couple describes as a purple-gray blue with a peachy-orange undertones.
“It has at least two colors, which is the really cool part of it,” Absher said.
That stone is the most likely contender to sit atop Absher’s finger as it is a sufficient size to be cut down into a 1- or 1.5-carat size for a bespoke ring.
But in total, the 100 pounds of gravel yielded 26 sapphires that are at least 1 carat in size, along with 75 really small stones.
The value of those sapphires, including the big one, likely varies widely depending on the size, color, clarity and cut. The mine sells loose sapphires for about $100 to $11,000.
“We found more than I was expecting,” Parker said.
Weighing Their Options
Now that they’ve sifted through all of the gravel, the couple will consult with some jewelers about their various options for their sapphires, including the big one.
It’s been an educational experience of sorts for both, particularly Parker.
“I’ve learned a lot about sapphires,” he said.
While most sapphires in jewelry are heat-treated, leaving the stones as-is may be an option the couple will explore.
And with so many sapphires, they will have plenty for accent stones in Absher’s engagement ring or for the couple’s future wedding rings — and Absher also plans to make necklaces for all of the women in their families with some of the sapphires.
Absher posted about her sapphire haul on a gemstones subreddit on Reddit, and she received some helpful suggestions about what to do with the sapphires along with plenty of congratulatory messages and kudos to Parker.
One person even commended Parker for pulling off what they called their “favorite proposal” story.
When the couple exchange vows at a date to be determined, their rings will hold a tangible reminder of all of their loved ones who helped pan for those sapphires — and who have supported them in so many other ways.
The sentimentality of their proposal is indicative of the couple’s relationship and the future they want to build together.
“Those rings will mean a little more to us,” Parker said.
