what do you think of this idea for a sapphire engagement ring?

[tessari]

Everyone has been so helpful here and has given me so many ideas, so I wanted to see if there were any opinions on this idea: I recently went to try on rings and fell in love with the tiffany novo design...but my engagement ring cannot have any diamonds in it. So my thought was to have a medium blue cushion cut sapphire (about 7.5mm square) and then a band with pave of small round bead-set lighter blue colored sapphires.
My questions are:
-would this combination look strange?
-would a jeweler make this for us?
-does custom work cost a lot more than pre-made settings?

My bf is willing to compromise on a diamond pave band with the sapphire cushion if the sapphire pave band is impossible to make...but he would rather not, of course.

 

[LostSapphire]

Date: 10/21/2008 12:50:41 PM
Author:tessari
Everyone has been so helpful here and has given me so many ideas, so I wanted to see if there were any opinions on this idea: I recently went to try on rings and fell in love with the tiffany novo design...but my engagement ring cannot have any diamonds in it. So my thought was to have a medium blue cushion cut sapphire (about 7.5mm square) and then a band with pave of small round bead-set lighter blue colored sapphires.
My questions are:
-would this combination look strange?
-would a jeweler make this for us?
-does custom work cost a lot more than pre-made settings?

My bf is willing to compromise on a diamond pave band with the sapphire cushion if the sapphire pave band is impossible to make...but he would rather not, of course.

Hi there Tessari.

OOH we LOVE a project!

There are a few threads where we''ve done some photoshopping of sapphires with lighter sapphire side stones..I''ll see if I can find them. The consensus seemed to be that the lighter stones ''washed out'' next to the darker sapphire, where white made it ''pop'', IMHO.

In the meantime, can you explain why the no diamonds rule? Or is it only the centre stone that you can''t have a diamond for?

I''m off on the hunt for that thread...will be back when I find it.

LS

 

[neatfreak]

I think it would be beautiful, but agree that diamonds would make the center pop more. But it would work with the sapphires no problem.

Custom is more expensive than generic settings, but often less expensive than designer settings. There are companies like Stuller and Adwar that make premade settings but without the stones set, and they are usually reasonable. Normally, a jeweler would then set the small diamonds into it, but in your case you could just have them set sapphires instead. It wouldn''t be hard.

 

[E B]

What about white sapphires?

 

[LostSapphire]

Neat:

Do you remember a while back someone was doing a 3-stone project, and wanted different colours photoshopped in?

There was a large centre stone that had a sapphire photoshopped in, then 2 (maybe pears??) sidestones, that were done up in white, light blue, aquas, etc.????

I can't seem to find the thread. It wasn't that long ago because I think MissPinky did the photoshopping, and she used my stone for the centre on one of the pics...

It was a good thread to show the different 'looks' of sapphs + sidestone colours....

LS

 

[stepcutnut]

Sapphire pave I love this one!

 

[mercoledi]

Ooh, a blue novo?
Maybe try natural sapphire co, the only tricky part will be finding melee in the size and color you''d like. It''ll definitely be distinctive, though I might go with white sapphires myself.

 

[ma re]

Answer #1: it wouldn''t look "strange"; distinctive and somewhat original, it would.
Answer #2: any jeweller will do almost anything you can finance

Answer #3: if comparing two of the same, custom costs more than pre-made.

And my 2c: although sounds interesting there are some drawbacks. Tiny light blue sapphires are cheap, even with good clarity and nice brilliance. That means it''s not exactly cost effective to have them set, cause the price of work would far exceed the price of material. Not to mention that, in order for the final result to look great, stones need to be matched for size, shade of color, level of brilliance and overall appearance - that takes quite a bit of jewellers time i.e. your money. Now, if you''re still keen on that tonal (monochromatic) look, I''d rather use aquamarines, probably in step cuts. They have a distinctive brilliance, which is nice even in small sizes (whereas such small sapphires would probably be unnoticable), and step cuts would really emphasize that brilliance. Using elongated step cuts, like emerald cut, would result in less stones needed along the band.

Hope this somewhat helps

 

[tessari]

Thanks for the advice everyone! very helpful, as always..maybe white sapphires would be an option but I have heard that it''s very hard to find white sapphire melee...

LostSapphire: although my bf is all corporate and drives a car (not a prius even!) he feels very strongly against diamonds...he is willing to maybe maybe compromise on having tiny diamonds in the band

Stepcut: thanks for posting that pic! i hadn''t been able to find anything like my idea anywhere until i saw this. the dark blue and light blue go so well together!

Ma re: very helpful advice...i guess the trick is going to be finding the right jeweler for my bf to work with...good to know that the idea is at least a possibility. if cost is prohibitive, i hope he folds and goes with the pre-set diamond band.

 

[LostSapphire]

Date: 10/21/2008 8:03:30 PM
Author: tessari
Thanks for the advice everyone! very helpful, as always..maybe white sapphires would be an option but I have heard that it''s very hard to find white sapphire melee...

LostSapphire: although my bf is all corporate and drives a car (not a prius even!) he feels very strongly against diamonds...he is willing to maybe maybe compromise on having tiny diamonds in the band

Maybe he would consider diamonds mined in Canada instead? We''re really nice folks up here!

LS

 

[Kelli]

I thought 99.9% of diamonds were conflict free now. Is there something else I don''t know about them?

 

[Kelli]

BTW I think your idea sounds beautiful. I love the ring that stepcutnut posted!