My fiancé and I picked out my engagement ring together before he proposed, and I don't regret missing out on the surprise

• My fiancé and I picked out my engagement ring together.
• I'll be wearing the ring for the rest of my life, so we wanted to make sure I loved it.

I dreamed about the moment my fiancé would propose to me for months before it happened.

We've been together for four years, and although I wouldn't consider myself impatient about the proposal, I was bubbling with excitement at the prospect of starting the next chapter of our lives together.

When my fiancé did drop down on one knee on a sunny evening in May to tell me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, it was more than I could have imagined: romantic, sweet, and as natural as breathing.

But there was one thing that was exactly as I had pictured: the ring.

We picked it out together a few months before my partner actually popped the question, so I knew exactly what my engagement ring would look like before my husband-to-be even opened the ring box.

And as he slid the ring onto my finger, I felt more grateful than ever that we picked it out together.

Neither of us had much experience with engagement rings before we shopped

I'm a wedding reporter for Insider, so I've spoken to jewelers about engagement ring trends and impractical designs as part of my job over the years.

But I'd never tried on an engagement ring myself when my fiancé and I started talking about getting married, and I quickly realized that theoretical knowledge had little to do with reality.

I had no idea what kind of shape would look right on my finger, what size stone I wanted, or even what color the band should be.

My fiancé knew even less about engagement rings than I did, so we agreed early on that it made sense to look at them together to figure out what I liked — and what he could afford.

When we met with a jeweler in Manhattan's diamond district, I tried on every shape of ring imaginable: round, princess, oval, and rings with multiple stones.

After we narrowed down a shape, we got to experiment with different bands and speak to the jeweler about what clarity was right for us.

Together, we chose a lab-grown, round-cut, solitaire diamond with a gold band. I knew I would love wearing it for the rest of my life, and my fiancé could make the biggest purchase of his life to date with confidence.

But the best part of the experience was the way it bonded us

I knew looking at engagement rings with my fiancé would be fun, but I didn't anticipate that it would make me feel so close to him.

I watched him ask the jeweler we worked with thoughtful questions, take notes and photos of the options I liked, and grin proudly as we spoke with the staff about how excited we were to get married in the not-too-distant future.

Throughout the process, my fiancé made clear to me that he wanted everything about the start of our lives together to feel happy and full, and the ring acted as a symbol of that intention.

Plus, we had a more detailed conversation about his budget because I was there, which felt like important practice for the financial conversations we'll have as we plan our wedding and make other big purchases in the future.

Shopping for a ring together showed me that my fiancé wasn't only taking the proposal seriously; he was approaching getting married with a reverence that made me feel confident we were ready to get engaged.

So my ring wasn't a surprise, but that made saying "yes" even easier.