The Story Behind Joanne’s Rare Vintage Ring in Nobody Wants This

Spoilers below.

Nobody Wants This season 3 is full of surprises—and Joanne and Noah’s engagement is just one of them. Halfway through the season, Joanne (Kristen Bell) thinks she and Noah (Adam Brody), her hot rabbi boyfriend, are traveling to Napa, California, because he’s officiating a wedding. Turns out, he’s proposing to her instead. Not long after the couple sets foot on the scenic vineyard grounds (after a nightmarish encounter with a fan at the airport), Noah gets down on one knee, stunning Joanne and the audience, too. He adds another surprise when he reveals the engagement ring: a cluster ring with a large center diamond surrounded by a ring of smaller stones.

Turns out, the piece is from Fox and Bond, an antique jewelry brand based in L.A. that was founded by Blair Fox and Sunny Bond in 2015. Erin Foster, the show’s creator, whose life inspired the story, had the idea to source from them. And she knew the exact style she wanted for Joanne. This episode hits especially close to home for Foster; the proposal was based on her own engagement to her now-husband, Simon Tikhman.

Here’s what to know about Joanne’s super sparkly ring.

Joanne’s old mine-cut ring is 2.27 carats.

According to the Fox and Bond site, Joanne’s is “a Victorian era diamond cluster ring” made with 18K yellow gold and silver. The center stone is a 1.26-carat diamond with an old mine cut, which means each facet is unique.

“It was cut in the Victorian era before modern diamond cutting technology was invented,” Sunny Bond explains. “So [on] every old mine cut diamond, every single facet is different.”

“They’re not symmetrically cut like they are now,” Blair Fox adds. “And it’s one of the things that we both love about old diamonds. They just reflect light in a different way, and you just can’t take your eyes off of them.”

There are 10 additional, smaller diamonds surrounding the center stone, bringing the total weight to 2.27 carats. The piece is currently for sale for $11,385. (It was only loaned for production.)

The cluster style is also significant. “If somebody wanted a big look [for their ring] but couldn’t afford a big diamond, a cluster, in essence, kind of recreates that surface area, and creates so much sparkle because there’s so many facets that it’s an evergreen style that of course is still being made today,” Bond says.

Foster sought out a vintage ring for Joanne.

Finding the engagement ring “was something that I took control of because I just wanted something a little bit unique, something special,” Foster says. “I wanted Joanne to have something that was antique or vintage.”

Foster’s own real-life engagement ring from Tikhman was a new design from Martin Katz, but for Joanne’s piece, “I just felt like she needed something a little different than me,” she says.

She had already known about Fox and Bond for a while. Her husband went to college with Fox’s husband and gifted her a ring from the shop while they were dating—that’s how she first found out about them. “I always thought that it was just a really cool special business. And it’s always great when you can help highlight a small female-owned business instead of the larger brands that are always getting access to things like TV shows and stuff,” she says.

So, she asked if Fox and Bond could loan them a ring, and they said yes. They came to set with a handful of options, and Foster, Bell, and showrunner Jenni Konner scoped them out together. “They were in the middle of a scene and they broke for lunch and then Kristen came in with Erin and Jenni, and we all just sat down around this tray of rings, and we’re trying them all on and it was so fun,” says Bond.

The ring they picked feels true to Joanne’s personality.

Bond notes a parallel between the podcaster and her unique ring. “Kristen Bell’s character on the show is obviously a unique person, and has her flaws and all,” she says. “And I actually think that old mine cut diamonds are kind of also ‘flaws and all,’ which is a really nice tie-in. Because it’s beautiful and creates an amazing sparkle, but if you look at each individual facet, they’re not perfect.”

Fox adds, “I feel like for Joanne, they thought, ‘This is what she would love.’”

Foster recalls choosing between this cluster ring and another style, which had two pearls wrapped around each other. “I felt like the pearl was just not engagement-y enough. And the one that we went with, it just felt kind of perfect,” she says.

Fox and Bond advised against the pearls for practical reasons, too. “We don’t suggest pearls for an engagement ring at all. You can’t wear them every day and especially not on your hand,” Bond says.

“It’s not an easy piece for every day,” Fox adds, saying that getting pearls wet, exposed to chemicals, or banged up might damage them. With that in mind, Bond jokes, “We were like, ‘This might not make it with Joanne.’”

The engagement scene was inspired by Foster’s actual proposal.

About a year into dating, Tikhman invited Foster to a “wedding vow renewal” in Napa, Foster recalls. For some reason, she didn’t think anything of the fact that it would be on a Monday. When they got to the hotel, the receptionist and staff were all in on the prank.

“We had gotten an invitation in the mail that I had looked at that had dress codes for all the events. I mean, this thing was planned so far in advance. Simon had flown up to Napa, gone to the hotel, and prepped everyone on exactly what to say,” Foster shares.

They took an Uber to Napa Valley Reserve; there were signs for the wedding at the venue. Tikhman called her over to take her picture. “And then all of a sudden he’s getting on one knee and I’m like, ‘Simon, what are you doing? We’re at somebody’s wedding. This is crazy.’ And he said, ‘Erin, there is no wedding. None of that was real.’” Looking back, she says, “It was the greatest surprise of my life and I couldn’t believe it.”

It didn’t end there, either. After she said “yes,” “these barn doors open and both of our families come out; my sisters, his brother, our parents, all our nieces and nephews start running. I couldn’t believe that they were there.”

Foster’s fairy-tale-like story was on the writers’ minds since last season. “Early on in the writers’ room of season 2, Jenni Konner was very supportive in saying, ‘We really have to do Erin’s engagement story. It’s just so perfect for the show.’”

And to bring things even more full circle, Foster makes a cameo in the episode as a crazed fan of Joanne’s podcast. She didn’t plan on being in the episode, “but as the story unfolded and we came up with this idea of this character, Nicole, it started to make sense that it would be me,” she says. “And it just all worked in this very cool way.”