I'm nervous about ring for her

I'm looking for where to buy a ring and found this (redacted spam). What do you think of it? Whether you are deceived there or have you heard something about it? Tell me, you've already gone through this. I'm nervous!

 

Blue Nile worked great for me.

Assuming you've eschewed the advice of Eddie Braverman on marriage, I wouldn't ask any of these judgmental fuckers about rings, hell I'd be afraid to show you guys the ring I bought, much less the dress shoes I wear to work.

Joking aside, congrats

 

If "ring for her" => engagement, it really depends on your fiance-to-be, but most prefer the old-fashioned diamond. If that's the case, here's what worked for me:

  1. either through direct conversation or an intermediary (in my case, one of her close friends), find out what shape she likes: round, emerald, etc.
  2. go on Blue Nile to get a rough perspective on pricing available in the marketplace, keeping in mind that the stone will be seen on her hand by the naked eye, not under a jeweler's loupe with perfect illumination. Very small Clarity imperfections and Color variations are imperceptible to the average observer, but Cut defines sparkle, and Carat is obvious from a distance. This is a case where size actually matters.
  3. Once you have a sense of what you're looking for, buy a plane ticket to NY and go to the Diamond District on 47th St. Buy a loose stone and setting, and pay to have the ring put together. Your budget will translate to much higher Cut and Carat than if you buy retail.

  4. If you need more advice, check out The Plunge

 

I got my wife's ring through this site: www.77diamonds.com

It's as close as you can get to wholesale prices and you get to fully customize everything.

Colour

Unless you’re dealing with a diamond specialist, it’s hugely unlikely that anyone will be able to tell the difference between D, E and F colour with the naked eye. Consequently, if you want to save yourself a bit of money, you can go as low as F colour without a material impact on the diamond.

Clarity

VVS2 (Very Very Slightly included band 2) is as included as you should allow the diamond to be in my opinion. These imperfections will still be somewhat hard for a trained gemologist to spot under a microscope, so to the naked eye they will be fine. At a push you could go down to VS1 (Very Slightly included band 1).

Carat

This is the last thing you should be thinking about in terms of diamond quality, however, you probably still want to ensure that the diamond will look a good size on your fiancé’s finger. Not too big, not too small. You can use the following site for this. https://www.diamdb.com/diamond/1ct-round/

Cut

This is probably the most important point in terms of light performance. If you want a round cut, I offer the following advice. Go through each of the certificates and get a diamond which is cut within these proportions:

Table: 54% to 57% Crown: 34% to 35% Pavilion; 40.6% to 41% Depth: 61% to 62.5% Girdle: Thin to Medium

These are the proportion of what is deemed to be a "super excellent" cut (see google images for a table outlining the above), but you cannot filter for these since GIA do not have such a ranking. A diamond cut to these proportions would fall within GIA's “excellent” cut grade, but so would other inferior diamonds, hence the need to manually go through the certificates to ensure that the diamond confirms to these dimensions.

Once you have found one that conforms to these dimensions, you can use the Holloway cut adviser to help you establish what the diamond will look like in real life based on its measurements.

https://www.pricescope.com/tools/hca/

Ideally you should be looking for everything to be "excellent", but this will be extremely hard to achieve, so if you manage to get "very good" for the visual size to weight ratio (aka spread) and "excellent" for everything else (light return, fire and scintillation), you can more or less rest assured that you are getting a very well cut diamond that will have great visuals.

If you are buying a diamond on the more expensive end of the spectrum, they may also be able to provide you with hearts, arrows and ASET images, but you'd need to contact them and ask for it. This is the only true way to test for quality of cut, but if you stick to the above measurements and the Holloway cut adviser results you’ll most likely be OK anyway.

Other

You’re taking quite a risk if you get anything other than a round cut or a princess cut without her explicit request.

I would strongly advise that you look only for diamonds with a GIA certificate.

Unless you plan on getting a perfect diamond in every respect, do not expect it to hold its value. You’re going to be paying 15-20k for a perfect one at 1 carat though.

If you are planning on getting something at the higher price mark, you may wish to consider arranging a holiday to get it so you can reclaim VAT etc.

Unless she has fat fingers, and maybe even if she has fat fingers, I would recommend the delicacy cut. It will make the ring seem more elegant and the diamond appear relatively larger.

Good luck.

 

Go ring shopping with her first. That way you can get something you at least know she likes. Then go to a pawn shop and purchase someone else’s broke dreams.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

Literally just went through this process. I had no clue what I was doing and I was equally as nervous. Who knew buying a ring could be so stressful?

Go to a shop a talk to someone in-person. Preferably a small family owned/boutique jewelry shop. Know your budget, and be very straight forward from the get-go. Let them know you're willing to spend no more than $1000, $5000, $10000 or whatever your budget might be. Also, let them know of your inexperience as they should walk you through the diamond finding process step-by-step.

You might want to get recommendations from a boss/manager, someone they trust. I don't doubt that there are people out there who would try to take advantage of your inexperience, but a true, quality family-owned shop would recognize the potential to have you as a life-long customer. Best of luck dude!

 

I bought a loose diamond from Blue Nile, then took it to a jeweler to get it custom mounted. Worked well for me because I could comp stone stats in a low key environment and wait for the right rock to come to market; then had the human touch of designing something unique with a jeweler. Had a great experience doing it this way.

 

Just went through this process, I'd recommend getting a referral to a reputable jeweler from one of your older friends / relatives. Then go in with a budget and they will help walk you through the process, and are actually open to negotiation versus the online dealers. You'd be surprised on the what you're willing to "give and take" between the 4 C's. For example the websites make slight color imperfections look like shit and charge you a ton, but you wouldn't notice looking in person.

Good luck

 

Don't do it. You must be able to inspect the selection for flaws on the spot. My friend's engagement ring was ordered online. The ring was of a beautiful unique design, but the diamond came with a flaw (a small dark spot at the bottom). Her guy being a regular joe, had no idea it wasn't supposed to be there. The whole episode turned into a mess.

Save yourself the headache. Pick the style you like on the website, and try finding something similar at a branded local jeweler. They're so desperate for business they'll help you any way they can. And take a VERY close look at each ring.

Cheers

 

First learn from her friends/family what she is looking for

Then research on blue nile to get a price estimate of what a ring like that would cost

Then show up to a diamond dealer / jewelry store with cash on hand. Diamonds are very opaque when it comes to pricing so unless you are familiar with the industry or have bought many diamonds in the past, the sales person will know you have no idea what you are doing.

The first thing you will be asked is what your budget is. No matter what you say, they will automatically set that price and be selling you diamonds worth much less. Be very opaque back to them “idk could be anywhere from a few thousand to 50k” or something like that.

If they hammer you, give them a number at most that is 75% of your budget, but less is more.

Remember, no one can tell the difference between a D and an EF.

Diamonds price better just under a carat.. so .9 1.9, 2.9 etc.

Also, unless your fiancé is a jeweler, she will never know the difference in a perfect cut diamond and one that is not. a wide cut diamond, which is not perfect in jewelers terms, will have a larger surface area and appear larger.

Clarity of vs and up is typically safe.

When you finally find the one SHE wants, whatever price they tell you haggle then down hard. Mention you have cash on hand, point out all the inventory they have sitting around, remind them they could get a 100% cash sale TODAY.

Push back on them about everything. I wish I did this when I bought my wife’s engagement ring. I did do it when I got her a wedding gift, and worked remarkably well. Got close to 25% off the first price they offered.

 

I picked up the band on Zoara.com. Very helpful people to work with and great quality band. Took that to a family friend who helped out big time with the stone.

To echo a few other people in this thread, get a recommendation, go see it in person, have the jeweler walk you through each stone in your price range and show you the imperfections. You're basically buying a car, you want to take your time with someone you trust.

Also, get insurance the second you get that receipt/ appraisal. I used jewlersmutual, not crazy expensive and gives me significant piece of mind.

 

some advice

1) just ask her sister/mom/friends what she wants, don't go into it blindly. There are even ways to find out from her without asking if you pay attention (i.e. if shes talking about how she loves/hates one of her friends rings, ask why). Bring the sister/mom/friends with you to the jeweler too for extra help.

2) ask around for jeweler recommendations, preferably from a older friend/coworker who has good opinions and has bought a lot of jewelery (engagement rings, wedding bands, anniversary rings/gifts). It should not be hard at all to find a reputable jeweler near you.

3) as others have pointed out, there are certain areas you can cut back on to save a lot of money. I personally focused on color and carat to get a nice sized very clear/colorless diamond and didnt really give a shit about clarity (there are a bunch of little imperfections you can only see with a microscope, nobody can tell just by looking).

4) MOST IMPORTANT don't feel pressured by friends or marketing to pay a lot. I was totally planning to spend $15-$20k because I had the savings for it and it seemed like what all my friends were paying. I ended up finding a ring in the store that her sister and I both really liked that was only $9,000 and went for it. My fiance loves the ring and i am SO HAPPY I have that extra $6-11k in the bank, especially now that we've been engaged for a while and nobody even asks to look at the ring anymore.

 

Just proposed 2 months ago. Go in person with your lady, it's the best way to make sure you don't jack it up. I met with the same jeweler a few times later to hammer out the details on what she likes after the initial meeting. It won't ruin any type of surprise when you pull the trigger with the proposal if you go with her once.

"That was basically college for me, just ya know, fuckin' tourin' with Widespread Panic over the USA."
 

I'd be shopping for a good lawyer to put together a prenup vs. the ring itself.

And also figure out in case of divorce, what happens to the ring that you are about to buy.

Finally, if you feel 100% sure you want to do this, go to NYC diamond district.

 

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