BLING BLING .. IT'S TIME FOR A RING!

Disclaimer: Engagement rings are an extremely personal item in a girl's life. These are simply my opinions. These ring selections and the thoughts I share in this post are strictly for my own ring and my own taste. Every girl has a different fairytale ring in mind and that is what makes each girl's engagement ring so special and unique to them. 

Whether you are a lady or a gent, at some point in your life, you will become interested in an engagement ring. For me, it was all about the bling. I wanted a platinum round diamond ring. I always knew that I wanted a Tacori ring because I think they are super classy and never go out of style. I obviously had no clue about how much they cost and how many different considerations there are when buying one. For that reason, I am splitting this post into two. The rings I love, due to a request from someone who wanted to scope out my personal ring style, and then we are going to hear from my hubs. Who better to talk about engagement ring shopping than the man who actually had to go out and buy the bling?

First things first, we decided on Diamonds Direct Crabtree. We really got close to a saleswoman named Amy during the ring buying process and felt that we could trust her to help us make a great decision. For all the couples out there who have never stepped into a jewelry store, this place has an amazing selection of rings and the sales associates are not breathing down your neck to sell you something. We have been buying all of my "fine" jewelry (non costume) at DDC every since. Love them.

Okay now for my favorite styles. Here are my rings. They are both Tacori. The engagement ring has diamonds half way around the band, and the wedding band has diamonds all the way around. I love my wedding ring because on days when I don't want to wear my engagement ring, I can still wear this ring so that folks know that I am married.

Now for some other favorites of mine:

Love mixing a thing band with a chunky wedding ring.

My grandmother has an amazing gold sparkler that I have been trying on since I was about 10. I love it and have since loved gold rings. I think I personally would want something very simple for an engagement ring if I were to go gold. Like the ring above, the engagement ring is simple yet the wedding ring looks like an antique and would look beautiful on its own.

Last but not least, I love rings of this style. I am very picky about how my center stone is arranged. I do not really like it when diamonds are surrounding the main diamond because, in most cases, it looks like it is trying to make the center stone look bigger. BUT and there is a huge but there, sometimes rings like the ones above can have bling placed in a tasteful way so that there is a clear difference because surrounding stones and the center stone. When it is done tastefully, this style of ring is simply spectacular. Probably my favorite style other than my own.

In summary:
-I like quality over quantity. There are 4 C's in diamond shopping. {Color, Cut, Clarity and Carat}. I would rather have a smaller carat weight with a better color and clarity than a huge ring that has a yellow tint with lots of flaws in the diamond.
-I like round brilliant diamonds over princess, pear, etc.
-I am glad that I decided on a wedding ring that can also stand alone and look pretty.

To those brides who want your hubby to be to pick our your ring alone with no help from you: bless you. You are a better person than me.

Now for the man's point of view:  I asked Brian to answer the following questions: 

1     At what point did you know you wanted to propose?

a.     Well I knew that Diana was the one very early on.  In fact, I told a baseball teammate of mine that I could see myself marrying Diana before we were even dating.  But in terms of actually knowing it was time to buy a ring was about a year and a half into our relationship.  I was about to start law school and Diana was about to start her senior year at UNC.  I knew I loved her and wanted her to move to Texas after she graduated and I think the first step in the process occurred one day while we were shopping at a mall and walked by a jewelry store.  They had lots of engagement rings and diamonds and I sort of nonchalantly asked Diana which one she liked.  Well about an hour later I had a pretty good idea what she did and did not like.  At that point it was just a matter of start shopping around to try to locate the perfect ring.

2     Did you want my input or did you want to pick it out on your own?

a.     I wanted your input.  I think I realized this after my initial look at engagement rings at a jewelry store.  There were so many different types and different looks – all of which I was unfamiliar with.  Not to mention that this was the biggest purchase I had ever made on my own and I did not want to spend that amount of money on a ring that you didn’t absolutely love.  Plus, you were going to be the one wearing the ring for the rest of your life, so I wanted to make sure it was something that you could see yourself wearing. 

3     What did you learn about the engagement ring buying process that you think is most important for people to consider?

a.     I learned it is more like car shopping than I had previously thought.  What I mean by this is that the jewelry salespeople do try and put the pressure on you to buy that day and usually at the expense of the buyer.  Because most people don’t know much about diamonds and rings before this it is really important to shop and around compare prices of comparable stones.  It can be difficult because almost all diamonds are different in some regard (one of the Cs).  But I was able to compare pretty similar stones and find what stores had good prices and what stores didn’t

4     Did you know about the 4 c’s of diamonds before shopping for my ring? Which was most important to you?

a.     I had a general understanding of the 4 c’s prior to shopping for your ring that I had acquired while helping my Dad pick out a pair of diamond earings for my Mom during a previous Christmas.  But I still had to do further research on my own to get better acquainted with shopping for diamonds. 

b.      The most important thing to me at first was the cut of the diamond.  The cut is what gives the diamond such a brilliant sparkle as it is what determines how the light reflects off the stone.  Some of the jewelry stores I went to at the beginning tried to get me to look at diamonds that had a bigger surface area on top, making the diamond appear to be a larger carat than it really was, but the stone was shallow and didn’t seem to have very good sparkle quality to it.  Of course, these diamonds are cheaper and so they are hoping you will fall for the appearance of a bigger stone for a cheaper price – but it’s not worth it.  This is an investment and you want a great stone.  This wasn’t an issue, however, as soon as I started shopping at the higher end jewelry stores.  They didn’t seem to have those shallow cuts. 

5     Any other advice for grooms out there? Or … better yet … for girls out there who may be waiting for that special someone to pop the question.

a.     My advice for guys is to take your time shopping for a ring.  If you have an idea for when you’d like to propose, then start looking at buying rings well in advance of that.  I wanted to propose over the holidays and I barely was able to secure the ring in time because it had to be sized and the stone set. 

b.     For girls, I would say drop some hints.  I think guys like it when they know what you are thinking.  Diana and I were very open when it came to our future and the types of rings she liked.  If guys are anything like me, they will want some help when it comes to shopping for jewelry.  So perhaps casually mention that you like a ring when you see it in a magazine or on somebody’s hand.  That will at least get the ball rolling.