pandabee
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2012
- Messages
- 2,910
Good evening fellow PriceScopers!!! Get ready for a rather lengthy post...here is the story of how I met my lovely lady.
It all started a few years ago when I happened upon a nice preloved Tacori set with an 1.13 G SI1 AVC. My darling boyfriend (at the time) held onto it for quite a while, until we finally graduated from professional school last May, then held onto it for a while longer, until Christmas Eve a few months after we graduated. Although it had been a while since I had seen my precious Giselle (as I named her), I realized that I dreamed of a larger stone, and despite the beautiful work on the Tacori setting and the delicate halo bloom, found I really did not want a halo and preferred the look of a single stone on a pavé band. Luckily FI has always been very understanding of my bling tendencies and actually one of the first thing he asks after he proposes was if the ring was big enough
I would have loved another AVC but sadly there were none with specs that I wanted. I reached out to several other vendors (OWD, JbEG) and kept an eye on the ERD inventory but still nothing. I did send for a lovely 2.62 O/P from OWD but it did turn out to be too tinted for me (uncerted, and I think was quite a few shades lower than O/P) and too included. So back it went. Adam was very pleasant to deal with of course.
Grace had a few stones in inventory that may have been contenders, but were slightly above budget and were already set so I would have felt bad about taking them out of those beautiful rings. Also, because I had already had my eye on Daisy...
I had seen pictures and videos from Lauren B on Instagram while perusing through the #engaged and #engagementring photos. It's an addiction haha. Their photos are mostly under spot lighting so it makes it hard to see anything other than sparkly, but I emailed Aric (the owner) with an inquiry on a stone that I had seen a video on. He responded very quickly. The stone I was asking about was actually smaller than I preferred, but he found another one within the day once he had more details on my specs and budget. He sent me a video of it through direct messages on my Instagram account under spotlight, and another video under normal lighting. (If you don't have Instagram, he was able to email me the video directly as well.)
A little more about Lauren B since I haven't seen many other experiences posted here: they offer full refund within a 7 day inspection period (not sure on return shipping though as I did not have to deal with that
). Discount is offered for payment via check or wire transfer. They do have an upgrade policy that applies full cost of original stone toward the upgrade with no minimum spend on the trade-in. Currently they do not have an established buy-back policy but it can definitely be negotiated As far as stone selection, I did not really go with anything since cushions are best judged by how they perform so I was confident enough from the video and seeing it in real life with a return policy that I would be able to determine if it was the best stone for me or not. They don't have standard light performance evaluation tools but can certainly access those tools on stones if desired.
As far as settings, they do carry stock settings as can be seen on their website. They do have a custom bench that I am told does hand-forged but as I did not have my setting made from them I cannot speak to the details or quality.
Okay!!! Now for some pictures...here are some screenshots from their Instagram video and ones that I took with it loose.
Video of it loose: http://instagram.com/p/mxnXFrM14a/
Specs: GIA 2.5ct K VS1, 8.08 x 7.69 x 5.43mm
ETA: more info on Lauren B and diamond specs
It all started a few years ago when I happened upon a nice preloved Tacori set with an 1.13 G SI1 AVC. My darling boyfriend (at the time) held onto it for quite a while, until we finally graduated from professional school last May, then held onto it for a while longer, until Christmas Eve a few months after we graduated. Although it had been a while since I had seen my precious Giselle (as I named her), I realized that I dreamed of a larger stone, and despite the beautiful work on the Tacori setting and the delicate halo bloom, found I really did not want a halo and preferred the look of a single stone on a pavé band. Luckily FI has always been very understanding of my bling tendencies and actually one of the first thing he asks after he proposes was if the ring was big enough
I would have loved another AVC but sadly there were none with specs that I wanted. I reached out to several other vendors (OWD, JbEG) and kept an eye on the ERD inventory but still nothing. I did send for a lovely 2.62 O/P from OWD but it did turn out to be too tinted for me (uncerted, and I think was quite a few shades lower than O/P) and too included. So back it went. Adam was very pleasant to deal with of course.
Grace had a few stones in inventory that may have been contenders, but were slightly above budget and were already set so I would have felt bad about taking them out of those beautiful rings. Also, because I had already had my eye on Daisy...
I had seen pictures and videos from Lauren B on Instagram while perusing through the #engaged and #engagementring photos. It's an addiction haha. Their photos are mostly under spot lighting so it makes it hard to see anything other than sparkly, but I emailed Aric (the owner) with an inquiry on a stone that I had seen a video on. He responded very quickly. The stone I was asking about was actually smaller than I preferred, but he found another one within the day once he had more details on my specs and budget. He sent me a video of it through direct messages on my Instagram account under spotlight, and another video under normal lighting. (If you don't have Instagram, he was able to email me the video directly as well.)
A little more about Lauren B since I haven't seen many other experiences posted here: they offer full refund within a 7 day inspection period (not sure on return shipping though as I did not have to deal with that
). Discount is offered for payment via check or wire transfer. They do have an upgrade policy that applies full cost of original stone toward the upgrade with no minimum spend on the trade-in. Currently they do not have an established buy-back policy but it can definitely be negotiated As far as stone selection, I did not really go with anything since cushions are best judged by how they perform so I was confident enough from the video and seeing it in real life with a return policy that I would be able to determine if it was the best stone for me or not. They don't have standard light performance evaluation tools but can certainly access those tools on stones if desired.As far as settings, they do carry stock settings as can be seen on their website. They do have a custom bench that I am told does hand-forged but as I did not have my setting made from them I cannot speak to the details or quality.
Okay!!! Now for some pictures...here are some screenshots from their Instagram video and ones that I took with it loose.
Video of it loose: http://instagram.com/p/mxnXFrM14a/
Specs: GIA 2.5ct K VS1, 8.08 x 7.69 x 5.43mm
ETA: more info on Lauren B and diamond specs
Can we see some more profile shots w/ the band please?! Thx!
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