So are Mara and AlJ at WF right now!?!!

[LadyluvsLuxury]

ALJ & Mara I am soooooo jealous!!!! That seven carat looks so much prettier than the 10.6 my jeweler let me try on a few months back, I''m sure the one I tried on wasn''t "ideal". WOW I am in AWE! I cannot wait for you all to post some more pics! Glad you had a great time and got to meet the dream team at WF!

 

[Patty]

Date: 9/18/2005 11:36:00 AM
Author: MissGotRocks
Sounds like the perfect trip - good friends, good food and DIAMONDS galore! I can understand it being overwhelming and yet the greed of it all must eat you up. You just simply want to see and drink in everything you can while you are there.

Thanks so much for the stories and the pictures. I''m sure there will be more to follow when you guys have rested up. So we know that Al did some fine tuning thinking on her pendant. . . but

did Mara buy ANYTHING?

Why do you think the finger is pointing to THAT stone?

 

[Patty]

And I''m so glad that you two ladies finally got to meet each other in person! One of my bestest friends is someone I met online. When we finally met it person, there was no awkwardness at all either.

The Whiteflash people sound like excellent hosts/hostesses and I hope that some day I can do the tour too.

And just where is that Mara and what did she buy? Hmmmm.

 

[Kaleigh]

I''m glad you guys finally got to meet and have such a great time together. With Nan it''s like I''ve known her all my life and we haven''t even hit our 1 year mark. When we met it wasn''t awkward at all. I loved hearing about the whole WF operation. Also the new jewelry lines sound great too. Thanks for all the pics and look forward to hearing more!!!!

 

[ame]

Patty's talking about me. I know...Im super cool, don't have to tell everyone...I'll do whatever I want to GOSH!

Date: 9/18/2005 12:56:34 AM
Author: aljdewey
And here's a profile shot.......as you can see, it's WAY too big for the setting (which should hold a 3-4 ct!).


When I took this shot, the first thought through my head: 'Ame would go INSANE trying to 40x mag this baby, and she'd have total heart failure about nicking it!'

*faints.*

I would keel over dead from exhaustion.

Wow you had a blast! I can't even imagine several HOURS with diamonds. And now that I know they are in two separate places that really explains things! Glad you two met. I have a whole list of folks I wanna meet from here. And yet I only have 1 name scratched off.

 

[icekid]

the 7.5... just wow

that is such an amazing stone! And it sounds like you guys had an equally amazing time. I am seriously jealous, but so glad alj took the time to write everything out. It''s always nice to live vicariously.

so did Mara leave sporting her 3 ct, or what???

 

[Mara]

Ok I''ve finally resurfaced after 10 hours of sleep in my own bed..yum...and after a yummy homemade breakfast consisting of eggs over-medium, honey sausages and english muffins with jam..and lots of coffee!

Greg asked what I was doing today and I said....pictures? I do have tons of additions to this thread so I''ll start working on those. But for now here''s a bit of my story for the last few days...

I had a direct flight from SJ to Houston which was an awesome stroke of luck. Getting off the plane I had such anticipation, I rounded the corner and saw Al and she had this big grin on her face. It was infectious. Our first night dinner was indeed as amazing as she made it sound. The waiter was the sweetest person...and the sangria recipe that he gave was just THE BOMB. I gave him an extra large tip for writing it down for me.

After we had 5 glasses between the two of us that is! After dinner we went back to the hotel and spend 2 glorious hours trying on each other''s hardware and taking pictures of each other with each other''s jewelry. Sick? Yes it was...definitely. And just so much fun. The best part was when Al said..its so good to finally meet someone who is as SICK about this as I am. Oh yes and that''s just the tip of the iceberg!! As she already noted, we have not met before but we''ve been talking on here for almost 3 years. Sometimes on MSN Messenger we finish each other''s sentences or say the exact same thing at the exact same time. It''s quite scary actually, well for our husbands that is.

So it was so great to finally meet my other half!! And to be in Houston and about to embark on such a great diamond adventure was just topping. Sparkly topping.

The next two days were just a whirlwind of activity. Meeting the folks at WhiteFlash was like meeting old friends or family. Everyone was SO welcoming...hugs all around. We visited the sales office first...we''d seen pretty much all of the faces in images before but meeting them in person was the best. Lesley is like the mother of the sales pen, and yes her accent is just to die for. She''s also incredibly well put together and of course we had to ogle all her jewelry and try things on. We met Debi the CEO who is the cutest, most petite thing and intelligently smart. She also showed us a few garnets she was deciding between to buy. Stunning colors in those. One was a 15c. *insert massive drool icon here*

We made it over to the production facility which is housed in a big jewelry building and we had to show our ID (and be scanned through some systems in the meantime I am sure) to get in. We met a bunch of the WF staff, and names that I had seen on emails for years but never spoken to, aka Vera. As Al said, she is just the sweetest person ever though she''d deny it up and down in her sweet little voice while telling you that ''she has bad days too''...yeah right! When there was a minor mishap in which one of the diamond boxes went flying to the floor and all the diamonds (in their little protective papers) fell out onto the floor in a jumble...John put them all back in and handed them sheepishly to Vera and said...these have to be put back into order...they spilled. Vera said in her sweet little voice ''oh that''s no problem at all, i''ll just make a little note and put it on my desk for monday''. I decided right then and there that I want to clone Vera for work in my own office!! Her attitude about everything was just SO positive and upbeat. Truly a joy. We met Leon who was a whirlwind of activity and rarely sits still for more than a minute or two. It was great to finally meet the person who helped me with my toe ring design after the phone conversations we had. He''s just as ''with it'' in person.

Then of course it was time for Brian. We''d stuck our head in and said hello on our way around but now it was TIME. Out come the jewelry boxes with the rings and all the settings. It was a setting-gasm!! Included in this was the new halo rings that everyone is talking about on here. They were set with G stones I think...not J''s. Definitely in the higher-up near colorless range. In the two rings were set a 1c and a 1.10c stone. We each tried one on. Then we switched. Then we wore both. During a talk with Brian we wore them on our ring fingers for ~30 minutes (since our sets were down with Mr Le getting polished and cleaned...we felt naked!). I told Brian repeatedly he better check my pockets on the way out. He laughed and said insurance would come and get me. LOL!

We tried on setting after setting, some multiples on one finger etc. Tons of picture flashing ensued. Brian made a comment on how funny it was to hear ''beep beep beep'' of our cameras just taking shot after shot. No holds barred. Then just as suddenly as we were enamored of the settings..we were antsy. Diamonds, we want to see diamonds we said. Brian pulls out the boxes. Oh I should say here that we thought ''the vault'' was going to be a big room with glass walls and lots of sparkly items displayed. Nope, it''s just a big ole safe in the office...too heavy to carry out of course but not a whole room. Maybe that comes later?

So out come the diamonds. We want to see the 7.5c first we say. Bad idea of course since after that everything looks like pop rocks. But out it comes and the first thing out of my mouth was HOLY SHIT. John says...I can''t believe you just said Holy Shit in front of Brian. I said OOPS.

The 7.5c is almost as big as a dime and way bigger than we thought it would be. If I saw that on the street I''d say it was more like a 10c. Stunning. Then after that I kind of lost count as to what came out. We saw a few 2 caraters so I could get an idea of sizing for my next upgrade, and then a 3c D with med blue fluor which was a stunning stone and seemed ''lit'' from within. I took lots of pictures of that baby!!

It was at this point that I started to get ''diamond overload'' from the ~50 stones we''d seen up until this point, my camera battery was dead, and I was pretty hungry too. We had spent almost 3 hours with Brian that day!! In the hallway on the way out I made that infamous comment to Al about being done with diamonds for the day. I also said ''well you know i came here and wanted to buy something but to be honest now i don''t feel that urge anymore because anything i could actually AFFORD would *not* be that 7c. so why bother?!!?!''. We left about 7:45 and went off to catch dinner. John Q was kind enough to come with us and we had an absolutely FABULOUS time at a fondue restaurant that night.

Ok I''ll post some pictures here now, since I have lots more to say and I am sure people are nodding off by now!!

 

[Mara]

Here is the new WF bezel halo without prongs...the halo set one only. I LOVED IT. It was my preference over the one with the prong set diamond...but Alj loved the other one better. I think this was set with a G and it was either a 1c or a 1.10c. Oh I also will say that I was not a huge fan of the halo set diamonds on my own hand (I hadn't tried them on but just felt like they wouldn't work for me)...but in person I was SHOCKED at how well it fit with my hand. And how great it looked. I thought...oh well if Mr Le loses my ring set I could just take this!!

 

[Mara]

and here is a closeup of the same ring with no prongs ... i love this shot! the ring is so delicate in person but yet feels very sturdy. the width is probably just about 2mm.

 

[Mara]

here are the two bezels closeup on my finger. The top one is the prong set one with the diamond set slightly out. it does make the diamond itself look slightly larger, like it spreads out over into the bezel. I didn''t really love it...it was the bezel one that I really liked rather than the prong. But Al was the opposite. Preferences!!

 

[Mara]

and the last one of the bezels for now...the two rings side by side and throwing sparklies onto John Q's laptop from the windows in Brian's office. That late afternoon light is just divine for viewing diamonds and rings! We were constantly awed. I'm surprised there's not more pictures with our mouths hanging open.

One comment is that in this image you can see that the right prong set one there is less of a line delineation between the stone and the halo. The bezel has that clear line of bezel but the prong set is more of a consistently sparkly look with no separators.

 

[aljdewey]

Yep....in looking at some of the pictures, I realized that Mara''s right - both of the halos were G stones. (I noticed it on the tags this afternoon after I posted.)

HA - one of the funniest things in the trip......as Mara said, we had to show our IDs to the security guard...a really nice woman.... at the desk upon entry to the building with the diamonds (deflation right there - we KNEW we weren''t getting out with hidden goods then!). They actually hold your ID up to a camera so they can record all entrants into the building. I noticed on Mara''s license that her hair was much longer then....the pic was taken right after her honeymoon and she still hadn''t gotten the post-wedding hair chop. lol.

Well, John made some comment along the lines of "that''s why MY hair is so short"

......he says it''s "sassy". The security guard pipes in to John, joking around...."let me tell you, child, SASSY don''t look good on you!" Mwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaah! She says "rugged.....maybe, honey, but not SASSY!" I thought I was gonna pee my pants I was laughing so hard! Poor John - getting abused by the lady at the desk.

Poor Brian!

He must have felt like he was hanging out the with the "stalker-azzi" with all the manic photo-taking going on. But HEY.....we promised y''all we''d come back with pics, and we didn''t want to disappoint.

 

[widget]

I''m so jealous....sounds like a great adventure!

Author: Mara
I''m surprised there''s not more pictures with our mouths hanging open.

Are there any pictures of the two of you??? I''d love to see what the "Dauntless Deranged Diamond Duo" look like...

widget

 

[Mara]

and here is a ring I don''t know a thing about but I loved it. It is a very huge pearl and the ring has the diamond pave detail work on both sides and the ''fingers'' of the pave reach up and hold the pearl. I am not a pearl person at all normally but this ring looked STUNNING on my hand I have to say and I was very close to saying ''how much is that pearl in the window!''....it was very different and lovely.

 

[Mara]

Here is my future 3 stone ring. It''s a new product for fall...a modification of the 3 stone W prong I think...slight differences. The ring itself in person is stunning...the prong tips are hearts and the side profile shows the prongs cupping the diamonds. Very beautiful. It''s on my list. This is a 1.5c center with .25c each side stones. Mine of course would be more like a 2.25c with .50c sides. Shh don''t tell Greg just yet.

I LOVED this setting. The sparkles that the 3 stone threw were breathtaking. It sold me big time.

 

[Mara]

Here''s a great pic of the 7c on Alj''s hand from the side view...

 

[aljdewey]

Date: 9/18/2005 2:58:56 PM
Author: widget
I'm so jealous....sounds like a great adventure!

Author: Mara
I'm surprised there's not more pictures with our mouths hanging open.

Are there any pictures of the two of you??? I'd love to see what the 'Dauntless Deranged Diamond Duo' look like...

widget

Yanno - we didn't take any shots of the 2 of us! We were rationing the disk space on the memory cards like you'd ration food in the desert!

We figured, well, we already know what we look like! LOL

 

[MissGotRocks]

Are there any other pics of the three stone ring. . . would love to see the side profile. . .

 

[aljdewey]

Date: 9/18/2005 3:12:34 PM
Author: Mara
Here''s a great pic of the 7c on Alj''s hand from the side view...

HA - this was SO funny.....we''re trying to tilt my hand enough to make a good shot without letting the diamond spill out onto the floor and break the culet! I didn''t want to have to surrender my house title to Brian!

 

[Mara]

Here''s a not quite fabulous shot of the side view of the three stone...it''s so much more striking in person and you can see the small nuances of the curves to the prongs etc. Loved it! One of my biggest beefs with 3 stones is that I don''t like 99.9% of the settings out there, but this one just really spoke to me if I went that route in the future. And I don''t even normally like heart prongs!

 

[Mara]

Here is their amazing orangish brown diamond...they had it set into a basic setting for ''showing'' but I really thought that the setting worked great with the stone itself. The colors inside this diamond were beautiful. I wore this one on the right hand for a while too while trying other things onto the left!

 

[Mara]

and the side view which really spoke to me. Loved the cathedral arms on this thing, it showcased the diamond itself very well.

 

[mrssalvo]

ooo, I couldn't wait to log on and read about your trip. You all surely did not disappoint. Those Texans sure do know how to be hospital. It sounds like you all had a blast. I'm so loving that 3 stone you posted Mara. yummy

 

[Patty]

Good to hear from you too, Mara!

That 3-stone is gorgeous!

More pictures please!!

 

[Mara]

*drumroll* .....

and here is the infamous 3c D with med blue fluor ES stone that just looked FABULOUS on my hand. What is so telling is that I didn''t even take any pix of the 2 caraters on my hand, I went straight to photographing the 3c. *sigh* I won''t be buying this one anytime soon, I think it''s $65k?!?!?

 

[Mara]

and a STUNNING STUNNING STUNNING picture that Alj got with her camera that shows the FIRE.

An interesting thing we noticed with our cameras is that mine focuses on white light return and can show arrows and like more in a 'contrast' way...and a white brilliance way. But Al's camera is all about the fire! It returned some stunning pictures that I just could not capture at all. So we tried to take pictures with both cameras almost always so that we could get both sides of the coin! Here's a great example. Oh and her camera makes my hands look nicer too.

 

[Patty]

Wow, that is gorgeous Mara!

 

[Kaleigh]

I love both the halo''s and am totally in awe of the 3 stone W setting!!!! I know someone here besides Mara that will looove that!!!!

 

[aljdewey]

Date: 9/18/2005 3:34:21 PM
Author: mrssalvo
Those Texans sure do know how to be hospital.

LMAO - this is SO cute, Mrs. S!

 

[aljdewey]

Date: 9/18/2005 3:48:38 PM
Author: Mara

Oh and her camera makes my hands look nicer too.

Anything for you, Batman....