Need a little advice.

J2D2

Hi I'm planning propose to my OH in the very near future and I'm looking at rings. I've talked this over with her before and I know the style she likes and well I was wondering what quality I'd be getting out of a ring for less than a 1000euro? I've looked around this forum a little and from what I've seen cheaper rings may tend to fall apart quickly or be of generally bad quality. So am I wasting my time or is it possible to get a decent ring for this kind of money.

I've seen what look nice rings in this range but am clueless as to whether they're any good or not. Even after reading the sticky explaining everything I'd still be wary of wasting money on a poor product.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

bigbadcon

Look here.

I bought my OHs engagement ring there and was so happy with it that I just bought her wedding ring there the other day.

To give you an idea of pricing.

I bought an engagement ring that cost me €3200 and there is no way I would have gotten it in Ireland for less than €4500.

The wedding ring I just bought cost €410 and I priced one in a well known irish jewelers that was almost exactly the same for €1050.

You can build your own ring to so you can completely control the price you want to spent.

ecaf

Has she tried on the styles that she says she likes?
I liked a style with a twist in it, but when I tried them on I didn't, I went for a different style that I didn't think I'd like. I wanted something different, but in the end the twist style didn't suit me.

In relation to the quality, the diamond and cut of the diamond drives price up. For example I have flat stones (princess cut) and they use more of the stone getting the flat finish, adds to the cost. There are different carets in diamonds to like 0.25 caret and 0.5 caret, don't really know a lot about this, only it has to do with the clarity of the stone or something.

I would advise that the diamond(s) sit in a clasp / claw (not sure of the word, but thing that holds the stone), this is because people who get the diamond set in the ring itself tend to have stones fall out. Another situation I've heard of is a ring with 4 flat cut stones in the one clasp, they might fall out too because only one edge from each stone is held down, and the 4 edges in the centre are a little looser.

Also prices will be reduced if you got 9ct instead of 18ct gold ring. For our wedding bands I got 18ct and hubby got 9ct. I don't know anything about white gold and platinum. I heard someone boast before that platinum added an extra 1k to the value (or cost) of her ring! Anyway your GF might have her own preferance to yellow or white gold.

whoami1

OP, I did the sensible thing and let my OH pick her ring. Then I paid for it. After all, she will be wearing it for (hopefully) a long, long time to come.

If you're thinking about getting married, then you will presumably be comfortable discussing your personal finances with her. Tell her what you can realistically afford. Don't be guided by old traditions that you have to spend three months salary or whatever it is.

ecaf

whoami1 wrote: »

OP, I did the sensible thing and let my OH pick her ring. Then I paid for it. After all, she will be wearing it for (hopefully) a long, long time to come.

If you're thinking about getting married, then you will presumably be comfortable discussing your personal finances with her. Tell her what you can realistically afford. Don't be guided by old traditions that you have to spend three months salary or whatever it is.

+1
That's what we did too, and I was told the budget too which was fine by me.

bigbadcon

whoami1 wrote: »

OP, I did the sensible thing and let my OH pick her ring. Then I paid for it. After all, she will be wearing it for (hopefully) a long, long time to come.

This is very true. The only reason I bought the ring myself was because I knew exactly what she wanted.

I could be wrong here but from a normal persons perspective a diamond is a diamond unless you go looking at it with a microscope.

Saying that there are some obvious colour differences in some diamonds but things like cut and clarity etc arent things you should be too worried about..

Actually you will learn a lot from the ring builder on blue nile about what cuts,clarity are the best etc..

I sound like a sales rep for blue nile but I really was impressed with how simple it was to pick exactly what I wanted..