Engagement Ring Q&A

Hi loves!

First, I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of love and well wishing surrounding our engagement! We couldn’t be happier or more excited and we are so blessed to share it with you. Also, huge thank you to everyone who submitted questions on Instagram, this post is based on everything you asked! With that being said, I’d like to place a disclaimer that I know anything surrounding money can be a sensitive topic and this post is in no way meant to brag or boast about my ring. I’m including details like carat weight and price ranges due to peoples genuine interest and ask for those details. If this is something you don’t want to see, I understand if you stop reading here. I’m a huge believer in being as transparent as possible and I’m also someone who truly wants all the juicy details from others as well, so for those of you who asked I hope this post helps you in designing your own engagement ring <3

Engagement Ring Quick Stats

• Stones – diamond
• Design – 3 stone, center stone is oval brilliant cut, side stones are pear shape
• Carat – center stone is 4.22, pears on band are 0.32 each, band is 0.75 in total
• Band – 18k gold custom band by Tacori

Design Process

Before we get into the overall design process itself, YES, I designed my ring…with Conner’s blessing of course. He does truly appreciate all the comments on Instagram telling him he did such a great job and having that much faith in his design eye. After almost 7 years together I think he knew I was a bit too Type A to turn this completely over to him, although he did give his input which influenced part of the ring design, so we’ll call it a joint effort. I love creating a vision and bringing something to life so designing my own ring has always been a dream of mine and I’m happy Conner was on board. However, I did want to be surprised, so after I approved the design renderings (which I’ve included below) I wanted to be 100% hands off. I don’t know when he purchased the ring, asked for it to be ready by or when he picked it up, etc. which helped make the exact timing of a proposal a surprise.

Conner and I visited several different jewelry stores in Connecticut earlier this year starting in January when he asked to start looking at what I wanted in an engagement ring. Our experience at Rumanoff’s by far exceeded all of our expectations and our experiences at other stores, so the decision to get my engagement ring there was an easy one. They are family owned and really take the time to educate you on every aspect of your engagement ring design process, including detailed education of diamonds overall and specifically the stones you will look at in person in their diamond room. We worked with Leslie throughout this process and couldn’t be more thankful to her!Conner had reached out to them before we went to the store so they had about four diamonds set aside for us to look at based on the size and shape we requested. I cannot recommend looking at diamonds in person enough, especially if you want an oval since they can differ so much. Some ovals are much more fat or round and others are much more elongated, so it’s important to know which shape you prefer over the other and seeing the diamonds in person also really lets you target what carat size you prefer on your finger.

For the band, we ended up going with a Tacori band which we completely customized based off of two existing designs (HT2628OV and 2685OV), and I have a whole explanation by Leslie herself of what aspects we used from each design in my Instagram story highlights if you are interested. Because Rumanoff’s works so closely with Tacori, Leslie was able to call them and explain the exact design we wanted and get a band price quote that day which was incredible. If you were to look online, each band will show a set price, but if you are going fully custom, every change you make will add or subtract from the price. Obviously, if you want to add more detail that could hurt your budget but if you are taking away any detail it can help lower the price or fit a specific budget, so if you aren’t close to Connecticut to work with Rumanoff’s make sure whoever is doing your custom band is also customizing the price accordingly.

As our last step, we requested that Tacori proceed with the computer rendering of our custom design, (exact renderings included below), so that we could bring our vision to life and make changes if needed after seeing it. The rendering is such a good match for how the ring came out, (although no rendering could have prepared me or how beautiful it is in person), so I definitely recommend getting one done before approving a design.

Choosing Stone Type

I got a couple questions asking if we used moissanite, which I understand because my ring is obviously very large, but we personally never wanted to go with any stone except for diamonds. I didn’t want to upgrade my ring later on, especially since we had waited so long to get engaged in general and I wanted to ring to stand the test of time and be something like an heirloom that we can pass on for generations. I have my grandma’s anniversary ring and my older cousin has her engagement ring and we both cherish them like no other. I’ve worn her ring to all my interviews and important life events and I love the idea of being able to create something to pass along myself. I think there a lot of options today to fit certain budgets with diamonds while still having the diamond visually look great. But of course any diamond vs. moissanite or another alternative will be more expensive and it’s ultimately a very personal decision, this is just what our thought process was. I truthfully don’t know a lot about moissanite so I asked Leslie and one of her biggest things to consider with moissanite is that they tend to look colored. I did a quick search online which you can do as well to look into it yourself but it does say that they tend to have a yellow or green tint and rainbow reflection, which is very different to a high quality diamond which will be super white and brilliant visually.

3 Stone Design

For years now I’ve know that I wanted an oval engagement ring, but when it came time to really imagining what I wanted now I wanted something a bit more unique. I saw a three stone design on a random website, I think the side stones were baguette shaped in that specific one, and loved that it was more unique while remaining very classic. It took a long time for me to decide on what side stone shape I wanted. I was between baguettes and pears for the longest time and two things ultimately swayed me to choosing pears. Conner always liked the pear shaped more and then when I began pairing engagement rings with different bands I felt like the baguettes really clashed while the pears looked good with multiple wedding band styles and shapes. I wanted to center stone to be the main focus visually so I worked with Leslie to ensure the proportions were aligned with that vision and that the side stones accented the center but didn’t take away from it. Ultimately, I love the 3 stone design and think it is a style that will remain classic over the years and I wouldn’t change a thing!

4 C’s & What Mattered Most to Me

Cut, Color, Clarity, & Carat. All things I’ve known about but never knew at this level until going through the in depth process of picking a diamond and designing a ring. I’ll include an easy to read diamond education guide Rumanoff’s has on their site HERE, so you can read more about what I’m discussing in this section! Each of the four C’s are so important but when looking at diamonds I definitely ranked color as the number one priority and from talking with others and Leslie a lot of people do because it’s one of the biggest aspects visually of your diamond. Carat size was also important because I wanted the center stone to really be the star of the show and had always dreamed of a certain carat size. Clarity was one area that I didn’t care about as much. I wanted it to visually be “perfect” but I didn’t necessarily care if under a microscope you could see inclusions because who would know anyway right?! The clarity of my diamond is higher than it needs to be to visually achieve this, it just so happened that the stone we like in person the most overall had high clarity but per Leslie as long as you’re around ~SI1 and better you shouldn’t be able to tell to the naked eye.

Pricing & Where to Save

Pricing is such a personal topic and for privacy reasons and safety concerns (the world is a crazy place as we know) we don’t feel comfortable discussing exact pricing of our ring. Tacori band pricing is very black and white across all retailers but again if you’re customizing like we did the price will vary some from the original price shown online. The two band styles we took inspiration from are both linked so you can start getting an overall feel for Tacori brand pricing. If you aren’t set on a certain designer like Tacori this may be a great place to save on the ring. For us we loved that Tacori is extremely high quality and hand made in California so we were okay with paying more for that level of craftsmanship and detail. Another great place to save while still using real diamonds (besides clarity as discussed above) is with lab grown vs naturally mined diamonds. Lab diamonds are the exact same thing as naturally mined diamonds, the only difference is where they are made/grown. The way Leslie puts it is that lab diamonds are like getting ice out of the freezer and natural diamonds are like getting ice outside, both are ice. My ring is a mix of both natural (entire band including pear side stones) and lab diamonds (center stone). If you are going with a lab diamond Leslie highly recommends using a trusted retailer who uses certified lab diamonds only (certified by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) or International Gemological Institute (IGI)). She also gave me some price ranges based on a 4 carat diamond for lab vs natural to share with you all and I am truly shook by her report! For a 4 carat lab diamond in the market currently this ranges from 8K to 22K depending on quality, whereas a 4 carat natural diamond is ranging from 85K to 160K+ depending on quality. I personally think even if you could afford a natural diamond that size that there are a lot better ways to use said money…but that’s just my opinion so if you’re rich go off boo haha. I also think that lab diamonds are more sustainable and ethical which I love and every jeweler I’ve spoken to personally has gone with lab themselves so it’s a great option to get more bang for your buck and fit a desired budget more easily. But again my ring is a mix so I really don’t have anything against natural diamonds and if that is very important to you then make that a priority when discussing with your partner.

I hope this blog post answered all of your questions and was helpful for anyone planning to get engaged soon! If you have any additional questions please feel free to leave them here or over on Instagram! I have a detailed ring reel on Instagram as well that you can view HERE. As always, thank you so much for your love and continued support!