Your thoughts on non-diamond engagement ring?

Albuquerque said:
Of note: non-diamond at at the request of the woman receiving it.

This will be the second time I've tried this engagement bullshit; first one turned into a drinking, smoking "oh I accidentally fell asleep at some other guy's house" type. Ahh, but I digress... New woman = 100x better. Here's the pics of the ring I had made -- bought the sapphire wholesale + 30%, bought the diamonds wholesale, and paid cost for the hand-made setting. Total was about $2900; I know a guy who's GIA-certified who did basically all the work for me.

Links rather than inline pics, because they're 1600x1200...
http://www.schulzjewelry.com/csipwnz/dsc00059.jpg
http://www.schulzjewelry.com/csipwnz/dsc00054.jpg

Forgive the camera quality; it's a six-year old Sony Mavica, and it has the worst macro setting ever :(

Critical specs:
1.62ct VS Oval sapphire ("cornflower" blue, not grey like in the crappy pics)
0.75ctw (38-point each) F/G VS oval diamonds
14kt triple-rhodium-plated white gold (platinum + hand made = outta my current price range)

And no, I haven't asked yet. Thinking next month when all the parents are able to get together...
Click to expand...


Hi Albuquerque,

It's a beautiful ring! I imagine that your girlfriend will absolutely love it, especially if she likes sapphires. When my wife and I got married I gave her a similar ring. I used a smaller (1.2ish ct) round sapphire and 2 kite shaped diamonds on either side mounted on a thin platinum band. She's had the ring for about 5 years now, and it still looks fantastic without any real maintenance.

The only thing I would be very careful of is to make sure that if any of the prongs holding the sapphire in place become loose or broken that you get it fixed right away. A gem that large can easily become loose with the setting you've got. Ours has been fine, but this is something they warned us at the store when they created ours. With white gold it may be even more important.

Nite_Hawk
 
Jaysus, is it three months salary they're suggesting now? Back in the day, I thought it was two.

And I never could figure out if that was supposed to be net (after tax) or gross salary!

I guess I was lucky. Took mine to the mall about 14 years ago, after she picked one out of the Sunday ads that was about $100. Really. Then she got there and looked at it, and it turned out that the ad was about a 10x magnification. :LOL: Still got out of there for less than $1,000 (14 years ago. . .). She insisted that she still got one the size of the one in the paper (without the magnifying trick).

Didn't pay $3,000 even for the 10 year anniversary band with 10 diamonds in it!

Oh, and congratulations on your happiness! Here's hoping this one isn't a cheating slut like the last! :cool:
 
It still hasn't, although I did buy my wife a white gold one a couple of 4-5 anniversaries back since her original one got a tad tight after the kids.

I still have my original, when my finger got too fat it just busted the weld on the ring. I have a little band-aid holding it together. (I'm not kidding. :LOL: )

The originals were both .995 pure silver G, we got 'em in Cancun the day we were married where silver is cheap and I haggled the guy down from $50 just 'cause I enjoy haggling so much. :)
 
I like white gold and silver, actually, but the wifey is a gold-gold fan, so that's what we've got.
 
My wife is too, but I'm much more of a silver kind of guy.

Fortunately at the time gold was expensive as hell there, so we went silver and it's just stuck. :)
 
Well, since we're on to personal preferences... my wife is silver/white gold/platinum woman, but prefers silver or platinum as white gold reacts badly to her skin. My wedding band is tungsten carbide like my watch... essentially scratch proof for life (but a bitch if you need it resized).
 
digitalwanderer said:
Hmmm, I never gave my wife an engagement ring and our wedding rings were $15us for the pair. :???:
Click to expand...

My wife was actually "ok" with getting synthetic gems for her ring (We used the engagement ring as her wedding ring), but I was worried that she might only be saying it because she felt guilty about saving money (we were poor college students). I couldn't quite bring myself to do it.

She definitely wanted a sapphire instead of a diamond though, and that worked out well because I could afford a much nicer sapphire than diamond for the same price.

Nite_Hawk
 
I bought my girlfriend a diamond ring
and she was prancing about infront of the mirror admireing it
I said to her "your knickers are comming down love"
"no they're not" she replied
"well the f***ing rings going back then" :D
 
BTW Albuquerque - That's a beautiful frigging ring, any woman should be overwhelmed by it. :)

Congratulations and best of luck.
 
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