Ring Shopping

[mosesbotbol]

Bluenile is suppose to be a good resource. Diamonds are the biggest fraud of all time; the value is not inherent in the stone and Anglo-American/ DeBeers goes to vast lengths to keep the prices high.

Loose stones are the way to go, and also consider synthetic diamonds. Not sure what you can find in your price range and many tend to have a yellow color which is an asset in itself.

http://www.gemesis.com/

[OilMan]

Being happy with your wife doesnt mean spending 3k on a ring. That is asinine. Happiness comes from being with the one you love and not how much you can spend (or make payments) on her. If you can spend the 3k without missing it. Go for it. But if you cant, it will bring you more heartache/headache in the long run. take it for what its worth

Jeremy

That being said. I am married and my wife has a Tiffany & Co. Ring. That is because I could afford it at the time. She loves it not because of what it is, but because I gave it to her.

[rumballs]

Originally Posted by OilMan

Being happy with your wife doesnt mean spending 3k on a ring. That is asinine. Happiness comes from being with the one you love and not how much you can spend (or make payments) on her. If you can spend the 3k without missing it. Go for it. But if you cant, it will bring you more heartache/headache in the long run. take it for what its worth

Jeremy

That being said. I am married and my wife has a Tiffany & Co. Ring. That is because I could afford it at the time. She loves it not because of what it is, but because I gave it to her.

That is a funny post given the disclaimer at the end
My wife has a Tiffany wedding band, but the engagement ring is not from Tiffany, the prices are way high. She tried on an engagement ring there that was $40K !!!
The wedding bands though seem more reasonable.

[smitdavi]

Thanks guys some very good info.

[montecristo#2]

Originally Posted by Smokey McSmokerson

This is the route I went except mine was under 1 carat so it was laser inscribed instead of mapped. I would recomment getting a GIA certified diamond. It's worth the extra couple hundred bucks knowing for sure what you have. Plus, it's like having a serial number in case anything bad should happen.

Great point brought up by a few people, get a certified diamond. From what I can remember, typically GIA certified diamonds are better than the other grading companies (like AGS). A GIA certified diamond will hold its value better and the laser inscription is a plus.

[God]

Oooops... thought this thread was about shopping for cigars by ring gauge...

BTW... Congrats...

[montecristo#2]

Originally Posted by OilMan

Being happy with your wife doesnt mean spending 3k on a ring. That is asinine. Happiness comes from being with the one you love and not how much you can spend (or make payments) on her. If you can spend the 3k without missing it. Go for it. But if you cant, it will bring you more heartache/headache in the long run. take it for what its worth

Jeremy

That being said. I am married and my wife has a Tiffany & Co. Ring. That is because I could afford it at the time. She loves it not because of what it is, but because I gave it to her.

I agree with the principle, size and cost shouldn't matter. However, some women will compare their ring to others, even if they don't do it intentionally. For me size wasn't an issue, I was more worried about quality. Size can be had pretty cheap. A quality diamond can stand alone, independent of the size. A colorless ideal cut round stone (even with some small imperfections) will glow in the sun, it's pretty amazing.

With the disclaimer, it is still a strange post, but again definitely true. It is all about what you can afford. I also think, if later in life you have more money, you can always upgrade. A smaller stone can always be used later as a side stone in a larger ring.

I also agree, if you have the money, Tiffany's wedding bands are gorgeous. I couldn't afford one myself, but they are pretty nice.

[mhillsing23]

Oh man, congratulations! It is an exciting time for sure. I bought my girlfriend's engagement ring about two months ago, and I am going to ask her in about 2 weeks. We are going to So Cal for vacation...I figured she would love it if I asked her on the beach at sunset. She will be totally shocked, she has no clue that I have the ring and that I am going to ask her now. She picked out the ring. We started looking a little bit, but no seriously, or so she thought. She found this ring and ever since then she doesn't want to look at any other rings. She has really small fingers, so she didn't like big diamonds becuase she said, "They look funny on my hand." I gladly bought her what she wanted. It was under 2k.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by mhillsing23

She has really small fingers, so she didn't like big diamonds because she said, "They look funny on my hand." I gladly bought her what she wanted. It was under 2k.

That is good for you. Getting engaged with a woman with big hands could put you in the poor house....

[smitdavi]

Yeah, the plan is to ask her sometime around March next year. Were planning a nice spring break, so that would be ideal. This is a very exciting time in our lives. I just gotta figure out a good time to talk to her parnets and ask thier permission. We're high school sweethearts and have been dating for 7 years, so I know they know it's coming up SOON. Her extended family have her pegged as the next one that is getting married. She's a big part of my family as I am her's, so impressing them or worrying about them saying no is kind of a far fetched idea. Anyway, here is a pic of roughly what she likes:

[mosesbotbol]

Good article:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

[montecristo#2]

Originally Posted by smitdavi

Yeah, the plan is to ask her sometime around March next year. Were planning a nice spring break, so that would be ideal. This is a very exciting time in our lives. I just gotta figure out a good time to talk to her parnets and ask thier permission. We're high school sweethearts and have been dating for 7 years, so I know they know it's coming up SOON. Her extended family have her pegged as the next one that is getting married. She's a big part of my family as I am her's, so impressing them or worrying about them saying no is kind of a far fetched idea. Anyway, here is a pic of roughly what she likes:

Nice looking ring, I decided on one very similar but with round stones instead of princess cut. The nice thing about a three stone ring is that the individual stones don't have to be that large for the ring to look really really nice, especially if the side stones are proportioned correctly to the larger "head" stone. Nice choice.

[White97Jimmy]

For some reason, I just don't care for 3 stone rings. But hey, I'm not the one who is going to wear an engagement ring, so my opinion shouldn't even matter!

[MrINMENSO]

Congratulations on your engagment. I agree with what most are saying here. I'll just say that I spent somewhere between $7000-$8000. I recently got engaged a couple of months ago. Just remember this: size isn't everything and although she loves the ring I got her, if I had it over to do again, I know she would've loved something smaller just the same. It's the fact that you're showing you want to settle down with that one girl for the rest of your life that she will love. Now, if I can just purchase everything I need for our house, I'll be good to go until my wedding

[caskwith]

Why didnt you ask your friendly resident jeweller?



(thats me by the way)