Here are five steps to help you find your perfect engagement ring and save you time and research:
1. Budget
Determine your budget at the beginning of your search for an engagement ring. Do this before you do anything else. This will help you eliminate the irrelevant rings and gemstones, and will start making your choice a little easier.
Remember it doesn’t have to be diamonds. Birthstones are personal and beautiful and often nowhere near as expensive as many diamonds.
2. Personal Taste
If you are buying an engagement ring as a surprise, do some research.
Try to observe your partner’s jewellery and notice if they like white gold or yellow gold, big flashy jewellery or more delicate jewellery etc.
Asking your partner’s close friends for advice can be helpful – they usually know.
If the engagement ring is not a surprise, or it’s an upgrade to a prior ring, make the decision together.
3. Learn About the Gemstones you want to Buy
Learning about the 4 C’s- Carat, Color, Clarity, and Cut is an easy way to learn basically everything you should know before purchasing gemstone jewellery. This does not only pertain to diamonds.
Learning as much as you can about precious gemstone will help you understand the cost and quality of the stones in the pieces of jewellery you are looking at.
Once you have learned about the 4 C’s, it’s time to choose your gemstone.
4. The Cut
Precious gemstones come in many shapes and sizes. For example a very popular shape for a diamond is the round brilliant cut, for the emerald the cushion cut.
Find out as much as you can about the best cut for your birthstone.
5. The Setting
Once you have chosen your birthstone, you can choose a setting to mount it on.
Some of the most popular settings for engagement rings include the solitaire, the halo and the three-stone setting. Settings are available different metals, white gold, yellow gold, and platinum being the most popular.
What Comes Next?
Once the engagement ring has been purchased, the search for the perfect wedding ring or wedding band is the next move. Some couples choose an interlocking or matching bridal set. Whatever your choice, try to find a wedding ring which enhances the beauty of the engagement ring.
You could help the environment by choosing a ring made of recycled gold. Did you know that mining gold for one wedding ring creates 20 tons of mine waste? Recycling gold is now more relevant than ever and the jewellery industry is waking up to the idea that jewellery can be beautiful and environmentally acceptable. By melting down gold a new ring can be formed to a design of your choosing. If you have some old gold jewellery which holds sentimental value but you never wear, you could have this jewellery melted down to create a ring with a very special meaning. Whatever your reasons, the recycled engagement ring can meet all your requirements.
When choosing jewellery make sure the retailer has signed up to the No dirty gold campaign and works hard to ensure that the gold in your jewellery has not been produced at the expense of local communities, workers and the environment.
To check whether your birthstone is suitable for an engagement ring or any ring worn on a daily basis, check the Mohs Hardness Scale for Birthstones.
You may also find Different Colours of Gold Jewellery and Different Kinds of Silver Jewellery interesting.