Amy Purdy Engagement Ring Exclusive: All the Details on Her Unique Neil Lane Sparkler!

When Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Daniel Gale, in May, he proposed with a sweet — and very unique — “ring.”

Fashioned from a twig Gale found during a walk on the beach when the two were vacationing in Puerto Rico, the Dancing With the Stars alum (and double amputee) loved the heartfelt token, she tells PEOPLE.

Courtesy Amy Purdy; Neil Lane

“[Daniel] didn’t find a ring that he thought I would like or was unique enough for me so he decided to make a ring on the beach out of kind of vines and twigs and he actually did a great job. It was twisted and braided and you kind of couldn’t tell where it stopped or where it ended,” she tells PEOPLE. “It was something that we had spoke about over time but I wasn’t really expecting it in that moment.”

Courtesy Amy Purdy

But you can’t blame a girl for wanting a little more bling. So while in L.A. for the Dancing With the Stars finale, she popped into Neil Lane to check out the options — and ended up chatting with the jeweler himself.

“I was not expecting to meet him at all,” she says. “To me, it seems rare that the actual designer would happen to be there while I was shopping. As I was talking to him, I told him about Daniel’s proposal and I had the ring with me in the wallet.” Lane took a look, loved her story and offered to work with her on something special.

Courtesy Amy Purdy

“Amy of course adored the twig-ring but she was excited about wearing a real diamond,” says jeweler Neil Lane, who designed a gorgeous 2-carat diamond engagement ring for Purdy a few weeks later. Made of rose gold and platinum with a golden brown-colored, brilliant-cut diamond, the vintage-style ring is “very unusual in its own right,” says Lane. “It’s not just a regular white diamond but more earthy and atypical and fits her warm and down-to-earth personality.”

Courtesy Neil Lane

With small round diamond accents and designed in a vintage, late 19th-century style with hand engraving and intricate bead work, the ring scored a perfect 10 from the competitive athlete. “She fell in love with the ring right away,” says Lane.

Echoes Purdy, “It’s the engagement ring of my dreams. I’m not the kind of girl who needs a lot of diamonds or a lot of bling or something that is super traditional. Part of the reason I like [it] is because I am always carrying my snowboard in my hand and didn’t want to accidentally knock the diamond loose or anything … It’s feminine but it’s tough and I feel that’s exactly how I think I am.”

Courtesy Neil Lane

“It’s so much more than I could ever have asked for. Daniel and I are really such simple people and of course he wanted me to have a beautiful ring but I had no idea I’d walk away with these amazing one-of-a-kind custom rings,” she says. And of course, the rings proved irresistible. With the new diamond in hand, Gale proposed again when the couple was on a recent camping trip. Says Lane: “She said yes — again!”

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What do you think of the rings? How sweet are Purdy and Gale?

–Elizabeth Leonard, reporting by Patrick Gomez