I have never been more confused and completely out of my comfort zone like the time I went and bought my wife’s engagement ring. I had absolutely zero idea what to expect what I was looking for and how much it was supposed to cost.
Here I’m going into the jewellery store and like hello; I would like to buy a diamond engagement ring please. Congratulations have a seat I’ve got a few questions. What were you thinking in terms of clarity? What color do you like? How about carat size and what about setting?
All these questions made me almost ran out of there, and you would have found me in the fetal position underneath a parked car. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. What was I getting into? And all I wanted was just a diamond ring without making the biggest mistake in my life.
Today I have teamed up with my go to online diamond retailer James Allen to help you understand the diamond buying process. What you’re looking for while you’re looking for the perfect engagement ring.
We will talk about different aspects of buying a diamond, not to mention how to save some cash. Our goal today is to give you enough info and make you confident enough next time you decide to shop for some engagement bling.
Now for me personally I don’t understand the allure of diamonds. I also don’t get why women lose their ever-loving mind over them. When’s the last time you were sitting with your girlfriend and watching a movie and she exclaims O-M-G!!! Did you see the size of that ring!
Let’s get started with some diamond buying basics. First item of business is determining the shape of the diamond. Here are some typical shapes of diamonds – emerald, round, princess heart, radiant, oval, and pear. When in doubt always go round. It’s always in style. It’s always in vogue and she’s always going to love it.
Now let’s go over the four C’s diamond nomenclature. The first C stands for the color. Diamond color is based on a scale of colorless. The best quality is D all the way down to Z. Basically anything from D E F G H is going to be great. As you slide down and once you get past H, colors of the diamonds are going to get a little bit yellow to the eye.
Next C stands for clarity. When you’re looking at a diamond and there is this inclusion, like a little black spot that’s out of place, this means that the diamond is not clear. As you get less inclusions the more expensive the diamond is going to be. And of course there’s a weird scale to base it on.
Flawless diamonds have a clarity of F or internally flawless. VVS1 stands for very very slight inclusions, VS1 very slight inclusions, S1 slight inclusions and “1†stands for one imperfect a visible inclusions.
Our C number three is a cut. Sometimes you look at a diamond and you think it’s a nice diamond. Other times you look at a diamond it’s like popping you in the face with sparkly amazingness. It’s hard to describe the look but it’s basically the ‘sparklinessâ€.
A better cut diamond will bounce off and reflect light better. The scale of cuts goes from shallow to very shallow. Next you’ve got deep, very deep and super deep. You’ve got to decide do you want a diamond that’s going with a punch in the face with sparkles or do you want something more subtle.
Our last C stands for carats. A carat is the weight of that diamond. It’s also going to correlate to the size the diamond. Diamonds weight is all over the board: everything from super teeny-weeny which I can’t even write, to super little, average 1-2 carats and big and monstrous like 20 carats aka celebrity engagement rings.
The setting is simply the band and the prongs that that diamond is going to sit in.
Now that we have the basics covered let’s get ready to shop for a diamond. The first thing you need to do is set your budget. Remember you can always upgrade later if you’re not making a ton of cash now. Don’t sweat it and buy what you can afford. Remember it’s a gesture and a symbol. That’s what is most important.
Shopping online is a great way to be able to buy a better diamond for a lower price. James Allen online store is an amazing resource and something I would highly recommend checking them out.
They have over 70,000 different diamonds to choose from. The sweetest thing about this is that they’ve actually photographed each and every diamond. You go online, set your “Cs†parameters and your price range and the system gives all options.
They even got this proprietary software that gives you a 360 degree view of the specific diamond, where you can zoom in up close. And you can see what it looks like in real light.
So gentlemen congratulations that you found that special someone, that fits you like a glove and you are going to ask her to marry you. Hopefully she will say yes and your adventure of planning a wedding will be next. I hope you enjoyed this article and the information will help but your perfect engagement ring.
Alpha M.