Well, hi guys!
You might know me from my past habit of chronically drooling over PSers' octagonal/haloed/micropaved/blingy/ICY WHITE
yumminess, or as a former LIW. Either way, I was an active poster a few years ago.
Long story short sounds like a bad Hollywood movie tagline, but here it is: "I'm BACK.....and this time, it's for REAL."
I have truly fallen in love with the man of my dreams who amazingly loves me just as much and can't wait to marry me. I finally get the whole "you know when you know thing." It's INCREDIBLE, as is he. (Yay!)
So we're getting engaged soon. He wants to wait to have the ring in hand to *actually* ask, but we have a wedding binder, have tentatively talked dates with church, etc. It's on, yo.
Here's what we're working with:
* I have an EC stone that was a gift from my surrogate grandmother. Estimate that it's between .75 - .85ct, but won't know until it's out of the current setting--around 6.5mm by 4.5mm.
*We want to bezel set it in something like laurenthepartier's asscher: a bezel that has its own character and is almost halo-ish on its own. (And that really plays up the cut corners.)
*We want a side profile where the culet is visible, and the shank kind of swoops up to the bezel. (Like neatfreak's).
*We want 1-sided pave in the shank, but only part-way down, *not* eternity. Probably 1-pt melee. We want a DAINTY shank on my sausage fingers: 2mm thick maximum, and would love 1.7, 1.8 if I can do it.
*WG or Platinum. Price is an issue, so that leans us towards WG, but we are getting quotes on both.
Lots of pictures coming.
To date, we've met with three local jewelers, all family/friend recommendations.
#2 is WAY out of the running--aside from being the priciest by far, he didn't listen to what we wanted, patronized us, questioned our choices, and clearly didn't want us as customers. I can understand on some level, since we're really not seeking a designer--we need/love input, but I guess this is technically more of a bench job than a design job since we know what we want. Nonetheless....yeah, he was a tool. No names. On the other hand, he gave us a great guess about the existing ring's history (Probably made during WWII because of the style, cut of the EC, and use of palladium.)
#1 was cool. Close to us in age, second generation jeweler, GG in several areas (Carlsbad *is* right up the road), and more than anything, really liked us and clearly wanted to work with us. Gadget guy: sarin, idealscope, colormeter (?), etc. Showed me H&A in 1pt melee! He got it--and was NOT a salesperson, really more of a gadget guy. Works with CADS. Estimate was crazy reasonable. We liked him a lot, but want to be thorough. (This is a workshop--not a storefront--in the jewelry exchange.)
#3 was also great. Our parents' age, family business. Definitely enjoyed us (and we him) and was informative, excited and receptive to our ideas, kept pictures, etc. Carves the wax, doesn't use CADS. If his quote ends up being identical to #1, we'd be torn. We liked him a lot too.
(If it were a $$ tie between #s 1 and #3, we'd lean slightly towards #1 because it's less than 10 minutes from our place, whereas #3 is a 40 minute drive. The tech stuff/same age rapport is also a plus. But we did like #3 a lot too. So....no choice yet.)
Which brings us to the next step. Online vendors. (Duh, I'm a PSer!! Check out all options!)
We've started a convo with WF, who called/e-mailed my bf last night. We will get them the specifics they asked for tonight. I KNOW how great their work is--and Lauren's ring, one of our inspirations, is a custom WF.
So....what do you guys think? Who else should we ask? Pete at Quest? Mark at ERD (who made neatfreak's cushion setting)? We don't want to OVERDO the research, but we want to know what all our options are.
So: Feedback please on
1) our design idea in general (thoughts? recommendations?)
2) reputable/affordable B&M vs. online
3) Quest/WF/ERD
You get the idea. This is so exciting for us--the BF is a diamond newbie that has absorbed it like a crash course, and I--of course--am a blingwhore. And this is a ring we want me to wear for the rest of my life.
Here's a terrible scanner picture of the EC (I posted this in Widget's heirloom thread years ago). Will take better pics of it soon. We LOVE the stone. The eyeballing estimate is that it's probably VS something, and between E-G, but that's just eyeballing.
You might know me from my past habit of chronically drooling over PSers' octagonal/haloed/micropaved/blingy/ICY WHITE
Long story short sounds like a bad Hollywood movie tagline, but here it is: "I'm BACK.....and this time, it's for REAL."
I have truly fallen in love with the man of my dreams who amazingly loves me just as much and can't wait to marry me. I finally get the whole "you know when you know thing." It's INCREDIBLE, as is he. (Yay!)
So we're getting engaged soon. He wants to wait to have the ring in hand to *actually* ask, but we have a wedding binder, have tentatively talked dates with church, etc. It's on, yo.
* I have an EC stone that was a gift from my surrogate grandmother. Estimate that it's between .75 - .85ct, but won't know until it's out of the current setting--around 6.5mm by 4.5mm.
*We want to bezel set it in something like laurenthepartier's asscher: a bezel that has its own character and is almost halo-ish on its own. (And that really plays up the cut corners.)
*We want a side profile where the culet is visible, and the shank kind of swoops up to the bezel. (Like neatfreak's).
*We want 1-sided pave in the shank, but only part-way down, *not* eternity. Probably 1-pt melee. We want a DAINTY shank on my sausage fingers: 2mm thick maximum, and would love 1.7, 1.8 if I can do it.
*WG or Platinum. Price is an issue, so that leans us towards WG, but we are getting quotes on both.
Lots of pictures coming.
To date, we've met with three local jewelers, all family/friend recommendations.
#2 is WAY out of the running--aside from being the priciest by far, he didn't listen to what we wanted, patronized us, questioned our choices, and clearly didn't want us as customers. I can understand on some level, since we're really not seeking a designer--we need/love input, but I guess this is technically more of a bench job than a design job since we know what we want. Nonetheless....yeah, he was a tool. No names. On the other hand, he gave us a great guess about the existing ring's history (Probably made during WWII because of the style, cut of the EC, and use of palladium.)
#1 was cool. Close to us in age, second generation jeweler, GG in several areas (Carlsbad *is* right up the road), and more than anything, really liked us and clearly wanted to work with us. Gadget guy: sarin, idealscope, colormeter (?), etc. Showed me H&A in 1pt melee! He got it--and was NOT a salesperson, really more of a gadget guy. Works with CADS. Estimate was crazy reasonable. We liked him a lot, but want to be thorough. (This is a workshop--not a storefront--in the jewelry exchange.)
#3 was also great. Our parents' age, family business. Definitely enjoyed us (and we him) and was informative, excited and receptive to our ideas, kept pictures, etc. Carves the wax, doesn't use CADS. If his quote ends up being identical to #1, we'd be torn. We liked him a lot too.
(If it were a $$ tie between #s 1 and #3, we'd lean slightly towards #1 because it's less than 10 minutes from our place, whereas #3 is a 40 minute drive. The tech stuff/same age rapport is also a plus. But we did like #3 a lot too. So....no choice yet.)
Which brings us to the next step. Online vendors. (Duh, I'm a PSer!! Check out all options!)
We've started a convo with WF, who called/e-mailed my bf last night. We will get them the specifics they asked for tonight. I KNOW how great their work is--and Lauren's ring, one of our inspirations, is a custom WF.
So....what do you guys think? Who else should we ask? Pete at Quest? Mark at ERD (who made neatfreak's cushion setting)? We don't want to OVERDO the research, but we want to know what all our options are.
So: Feedback please on
1) our design idea in general (thoughts? recommendations?)
2) reputable/affordable B&M vs. online
3) Quest/WF/ERD
You get the idea. This is so exciting for us--the BF is a diamond newbie that has absorbed it like a crash course, and I--of course--am a blingwhore. And this is a ring we want me to wear for the rest of my life.
Here's a terrible scanner picture of the EC (I posted this in Widget's heirloom thread years ago). Will take better pics of it soon. We LOVE the stone. The eyeballing estimate is that it's probably VS something, and between E-G, but that's just eyeballing.
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