How to Design Your Own Engagement Ring

Current Trend on How To Design Your Own Engagement Ring :

Hi, diamond symbolises your love to a girl, it shows your commitment to you. You must accept this fact! Diamond is a girl’s best friend, your girlfriend will definitely hope for a great best friend from you. Do you know what is in her heart? What does she want? If you do not know, then how to design your own engagement ring?

Lately, I have realised that many girls are asking for yellow diamonds, a less rare diamond as compared to pink diamond. If you have watch “Blood Diamond” before you will definitely know how rare and how expensive is a pink diamond. The pink diamond in the movie has caused thousand of deaths. I definitely recommend you this movie, but please do not watch this movie with your girlfriend, because it may spoil her childhood dream about diamond.

Of course, there are more girls who are asking for pink sapphire too, very beautiful stone, but is much cheaper than a pink diamond obviously. Therefore, when it comes to design your own engagement ring, you may consider using pink sapphires to surround a princess cut diamond, this will definitely be a very unique and special engagement ring, just for your girlfriend.

How To Design Your Own Engagement Ring : Ask Your Girlfriend

Ok… let’s us discuss about how to design your own engagement ring again. Today, I’m going to give one huge huge fact about how to design your own engagement ring - Ask Your Girlfriend.

I have searched through some forums and answered some questions in Yahoo! Answer yesterday night, I found that some guys have not enough budget and they are afraid to tell their girlfriends that they could not afford the dream engagement rings that their girlfriends want. When you do not know what your girlfriend like, or when you are afraid that your girlfriend do not like the engagement ring that you are going to design your own… ASK YOUR GIRLFRIEND!

You wouldn’t want your girlfriend to say, “WOW… I love this ring!!! Thank you… muaksssss~~~.” … while in her heart… “Geezzz… I don’t want this…”
She may just keep the ring in the future and wouldn’t want to wear it oftenly, isn’t this a waste.

I do know that you have tried your best to design your own engagement ring for your girlfriend, but, it will be useless if your girlfriend do not like them. So, remember to ask your girlfriend!

Latest Trend!!! in Design Your Own Engagement Ring :

According to Knoxnews and Bloomberg, here are the LATEST TREND of the engagement ring purchased. They have compiled statistics from 2006 until now. Maybe you can consider some of these when you want to design your own engagement ring :

Budget :
The average budget spent on an engagement ring in US is… $3,200

Band :
According to Knoxnews, “Some brides would like to have a ring like their grandmother had.” Antique band’s demand has increased considerably this few years. It sounds more like wedding ring than engagement ring to me actually. Example at Amazon.com

Diamond Cut :
Square Cut is getting more and more popular while round diamond’s popular has fallen. This can be attributed to several stars such as Ashley Judd, Brooke Shields and Reese Witherspoon have received huge media coverage due to their square-cut diamond ring. According to the survey, some also feels that round diamond is too common nowadays and a square diamond will make their engagement rings more special.

Stone Color :
More girls are opting for colored diamond this season. Instead of getting white diamond, now the demand of yellow diamond has surged.

Side Stone :
Surprising, due to the recent news about Diana, more girls are asking for sapphires, rubies and emeralds. These people want to create similar ring as Diana, which is a sapphire surrounded by diamonds (something like this, but not really the same). (caution : high grade sapphire is more expensive than diamond of the same grade!!!)

Setting :
Bezel Setting and Tension Setting have become more popular when people want to design their own engagement ring because these settings make the diamond seems to be LARGER, and tension setting can enhance the stone grade by as much as two grades, according to experts.

So… which design will you consider when you are going to design your own engagement ring?

My Girlfriend's & My Conversation at a jewelry shop

Below is a text recording of my girlfriend (G) and a salesperson at a local jewelry shop who I would like to call him, Mr. Jeweler (J).

G : Sir, I would like to see some diamonds, please let me see diamonds that only have certificates.
J : Ma’am, all diamonds here have certificate, what kind of diamonds do you want?
G : Ok, then please give me anything that is below D to F (I thought that my girlfriend is so good that she never requested anything from A to C, she must be trying to save money for me), preferably 1carat (wow, just 1carat? It must be very cheap, I always watched reality shows that give away diamonds which has higher carat)

after awhile J brought a small tray of diamond

J : Ma’am, here are some of the high quality diamonds here and here are the certificates.
G : Wow, really, darling you see, this diamond is so nice, you see it is the highest quality, D grade, colorless.
Me : Yes dear, it is very nice and it is colorless.
(Huh? I thought A is the highest grade, I know always get D grades for my result, are you trying to make fun of me? Wait, do you think that I’m stupid? Of course diamonds are colorless, they are transparent, and has the highest don’t know what index according to physics)

Then…
J : Ma’am, please allow me to help you to compare between these 2 D grade and F grade diamond.

Suddenly…
G : Wow… Darling, Darling!!! Can you see the difference between this 2 diamonds, one is D grade, one is F grade? Can you see that D grade looks better and more shiny?
Me : Yes dear, D is higher than F, I know… of course D grade is better. (seriously I couldn’t see any different)

Me : Sir, I will buy this, how much is it?
J : This diamond will be $4829 sir, I will give you a special discount……
Me : Nevermind, I think I will look around for better diamond and I will get back to you soon.
J : Certainly, thank you sir.

(We spent around 1hour in the shop, looking through stones that I couldn’t even afford, silly. It seems that I do not know anything about diamond, how bout you? It is really very important when it comes to design your own engagement ring, I think we should learn the art of diamond too)

How To Design Yown Own Engagement Ring : Identify Diamond Part 3

Wow… when it comes to design your own engagement ring, it is really really troublesome. Here is my story (continued) :

And then, yes and then (by that time, my girlfriend has already become good friend with the Mr. Jeweler), both of them are talking about color of diamond. My girlfriends show me two different diamond and say, “Darling, you see this is D grade, is colorless, is the best quality. Then darling, this one is F grade, has some faint color, is lower quality.”

“Wait wait wait, aren’t all of them are colorless and transparent?” I replied.

Lecture Begins… Darling… Actually, diamonds have different colors, they can be graded by :

• D (Colorless)
• E (Colorless) 
• F (Colorless) - the color can only be seen by professional (I doubt that my girlfriend actually saw it)
• G, H (Near Colorless) - can only be seen by professional
• I, J (Near Colorless) - very hard to see, but if see properly there is a faint color.
• K, L, M (Faint Yellow) - noticeable faint yellow

Try to get D to F grades when you want to design your own engagement ring, you will be able to know what is the grade by referring to the certicate.

Referrence :
Brilliance.com Diamond Education :  Diamond Color

How To Design Yown Own Engagement Ring : Identify Diamond Part 2

So, in the jewelry shop, my girlfriend handed over the magnifier to me. And say, “Darling, can you see there are some flaws in the diamond, it means this diamond is of lower grade.” Darling, basically. clarity of diamond can be categorized to :

• Flawless (FL)
• Internally Flawless (IF)
• Very Very Slight Included (VVS1 & VVS2)
• Very Slight Included (VS1 & VS2)
• Slightly Included (SI1 & SI2)
• Slightly Included (SI3)
• Included (I1, I2, I3)

The more inclusion (weird substance) in the diamond,  the lower grade it is. But, the inclusion can only be seen under magnifier (super power!) But WAIT! I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING! WHere are the flaws? Every diamond seems to be identical to me, just that their shapes are different, their sizes are different. Where are the flaws? I just can’t believe it, women are so particular with these invisible stuffs! (Click here to see diagrams of different clarities)

When you want to design your own engagement ring, make sure that you get a good quality diamond because its value will increase in the long term.

How To Design Yown Own Engagement Ring : Identify Diamond Part 1

What kind of diamond to use is very important when you are thinking of how to design your own engagement ring. 

When my girlfriend first brought me to a jeweler shop, the jeweler talked a bunch of weird jargon, I was very very blur at that moment. My girlfriend ask for something clarity something color… What? Darling, are you crazy? What clarity? What diamonds have color? Where where? Come on, Mr. Jeweler, I know that you can cheat my girlfriend, but you can’t cheat me! Don’t try to bluff me, diamond has no color at all, it is TRANSPARENT!

Then, my girlfriend stared and me and say, “Don’t be an embarassment, Diamonds have different grades, and the grades are determined by its clarity and color, blah blah blah blah…” My brain just couldn’t install all the information, she just repeated what the Mr. Jeweler just told me… blur.

So, after that I have searched through the Internet. To my surprise, diamond, this tiny stone, has its own theory and principles. I think it is very important when it come to how to design your own engagement ring.

How to Design Your Own Engagement Ring (Part 4) :

When you design your own engagement ring, you can try to consider some of the ideas below :

1) Embed love notes at the ring, you know what you should write.
2) Add additional jewel which your girlfriend likes, be it ruby or sapphire, but you must make sure that the ring looks nice.
3) Make a special box! You have to ask some gift shops or specialty shops in your town when you design your own engagement ring. You can put some small crystal dolls in the box along with the engagement ring.
4) Create a super duper romantic atmosphere when you are proposing to blind her eyes. This will definitely make your designed engagement ring extremely special.

These are just some ideas from me, do you have more ideas to share to design your own engagement ring?


Rick

Why Do You Afraid to Design Your Own Engagement Ring Online?

In this technology era, there are some people who are still reluctant to buy things online, not to say to design your own engagement ring online. I’m not surprise because at first, I’m still worried about the security and the quality of the engagement ring I will receive if I purchase online. I’m afraid that I will be conned by people if I design my own engagement ring online. However, after I searched through the web, I realised something :

1) I always thought that online shopping is more expensive
The truth :
i) Shopping online is actually cheaper because the operation cost is lower. Jewelry shops need workers to serve you, but online jewelry shops do not need workers to serve you. Hence, this cut down operation cost substantially.
ii) Design your own engagement ring online will be much cheaper because there are different templates for you to choose from. If you are not certain with the price, you can cross referrence on different sites, such as comparing between Amazon.com and Brilliance.com. There is no additional designing fee when you design your own engagement ring.
iii) Most of the online jewelers provide free shipping(some even use FedEX), hence no additional cost.

2) I always thought that the quality of the engagement ring will be lower
The truth :
i) The quality of the stones are guaranteed since the diamonds and gems have certificates from GIA, AGS and IGI (learn more about certificates here)
ii) All of them offer money back guaranteed, hence I can always return the engagement ring if I’m not satisfied.

Therefore, I think that it is 100% safe and quality guaranteed to purchase your engagement ring online or to design your own engagement ring online. Hope that this can clear some of your worries :)

Rick