aquamarine and blue topaz substitute

[radiantquest]

i am a LIW and have decided to pass time thinking about wedding bands. i am entertaining the idea of my band to have his birthstone (aquamarine) and his band to have mine (blue topaz). i have recently learned that neither of these stones are hard enough for everyday wear. i was wondering if there are substitutes that are similar in the coloring but harder. please help

 

[chinadoll724]

The girls here will be able to tell you a lot more, but my first thought is Sapphire which has a hardness of 9.0 on the Mohs scale- they''ll come in all shades and def will include lighter shades of blue. You could of course, go blue diamond, but that would blow even some of the biggest budgets so I wouldn''t even go there. Good luck!

 

[FrekeChild]

Yeah irradiated blue diamonds are about the color of swiss-london blue topaz and relatively cheap compared to natural blue diamonds. Natural blue diamonds are going to be much lighter-more the color of sky blue topaz/aquamarine. Natural blue diamonds are some of the most expensive, I believe.

Otherwise, I still stick with sapphire/spinel.