My Engagement Ring

Today I attended my Aunty Toni's funeral so it's been an emotionally heavy day; therefore I would like to tell you about something uplifting, my engagement ring. Brad and I knew we wanted to get engaged and decided to have our ring custom made in order to incorporate stones that we already had. I did lots of research into styles so I knew exactly what I wanted when we went to the jeweler. Our jeweller was recommended to us by my boss Loretta as being top quality and very reasonably priced. Loretta has a particularly beautiful ring that I have always admired so we were happy to trust her recommendation and then when we met the jeweller we were impressed by his wealth of knowledge and experience and willingness to make what we wanted a reality.

Brad first proposed to me when we had only been seeing each other 6 months; we were not ready for an engagement so I said no, however we stayed together as a couple. The ring he proposed with was from Tiffany's, a fact that gives me an untold amount of pleasure. The fact that a man not only wanted to marry me but also thought I was worthy of a Tiffany's ring, wow. The ring was beautiful, it was a quarter carat set in a very delicate platinum band. Stunning. But just not me. I have chunky man-knuckles therefore rings with thin, delicate bands just get lost on my man-hands so while the ring was beautiful, it just didn't suit my hand. I am into feng shui and in my research I learned that the optimum shape for an engagement ring is the feng shui bagua so that's the shape I decided to go with. I am also into numerology so I wanted the number of diamonds in the ring to add up to 6, which means love. Altogether we had the Tiffany's ring, my parents eternity ring and 4 other rings with small diamonds that I had been given over the years but didn't wear anymore.

We really liked that the jeweller was an older man with many years of experience; we had spoken with another whom was young, in his 20's and while he was lovely, he didn't have any creative solutions to the few very minor issues we had. The guy we went with was roughly the same price but his experience and the suggestions he made were priceless to us. In the first design the ring had a total of 19 diamonds, which is a 1 in numerology, not good for a marriage. We had diamonds left over so the jeweller placed 5 more on the inside of the ring where they will never be seen but I know they are there! Most people think I'm crazy but I've been divorced once and I don't every intend to divorce again so if I can do one little tiny thing to enhance my marriage then I'll do it! I also really love art deco jewelry so I wanted my ring to have a classic, vintage feel to it. I decided to go with white gold instead of my usual yellow as white gold makes the diamonds sparkle brighter.

All up my engagement ring is 11mm across, it has 24 diamonds set in white gold and all edges are mill grain set, which are little bumps that add to the art deco feel of the ring. Unfortunately I don't know the total diamond weight, I have to get a valuation done to find that out. Originally my wedding and eternity rings was going to be a straight channel set white gold bands to sit under the raised basket but now I'm not so sure, I'm thinking of having them shaped so they go around the engagement ring bagua, like the picture below. I think it will make the whole thing look more substantial, what do you think? If anyone has any thoughts please let me know.

love

K