Why buy a ready-made ring when you can design your own engagement ring? Discerning future grooms often choose to create a ring that's perfectly tailored to their beloveds' tastes. Other couples choose to design an engagement ring together, crafting a ring that's meaningful for both.
Before you create your own engagement ring, it helps to know the basic ingredients: the diamond, the band, and the setting. Here, we'll go over popular designs for each.
Different Cuts for Different Tastes
The diamond is usually the focal point and sets the tone for your engagement ring. It's the most obvious and noticeable part of the ring, so it's important to pick a cut she'll love. Here are the most common cuts on the market.
Round brilliants are the most common diamond cuts. This multi-faceted cut reflects a great deal of light, perfect for showcasing a diamond's brilliance and fire. With a good round brilliant cut, you're sure to get a sparkly stone.
Modified brilliants come in many shapes and sizes. A modified brilliant incorporates roughly the same facet design as a round brilliant, maximizing the amount of fire and sparkle in the stone. However, modified brilliants come in many different shapes, including marquises, hearts, trillions, pears, and ovals.
Step cuts highlight a stone's clarity rather than its sparkle. A stone loses less of its volume when it is cut in a step style, so many step-cut stones are larger; however, smaller step cut stones are also popular accents to a larger brilliant-cut solitaire. With a step cut, the facets are arranged horizontally to the top of the stone, and are rectangular in shape. Many step-cut stones are square or rectangular, and variations include the emerald cut, the baguette, and the lozenge.
Mixed cuts combine the sparkly nature of the brilliants with the weight preservation of a step cut, making it possible to mold larger diamonds into fiery gems without losing too much carat weight. Mixed cuts are often square, but have more sparkle than the typical step cut square gems. Common mixed cuts include the Princess, the Flanders, and the Barion.
Know Your Settings
Once you've chosen a diamond, you need to figure out how to set it in the band. The setting is an important accent, and can be the detail that makes her love the engagement ring or hate it. Here are the more common setting designs you'll find when designing your own ring.
Prong settings. The most popular choice for solitaire diamonds, a prong setting involves four metal prongs that hold the diamond at four corners--or at three, five, or six, depending on the shape of your diamond.
The less metal touching the diamond, the more it will sparkle. A prong setting is generally the best for showcasing the diamond's sparkle and fire--it allows plenty of light into the stone from different angles.
However, your diamond may be at more risk of falling off than it would in another setting. Prong settings also protrude, which can be a nuisance for some.
Bezel settings. A bezel is a collar of metal wrapped around a diamond or other gem. With this setting, the diamond still protrudes from the ring, but it's set in a smoother, more secure surface. Bezel settings tend to have a traditional look, but can look more modern and creative when the collar of metal is itself set with small, non-traditional gems.
Channel settings. With this setting, diamonds are placed in a narrow channel below the surface of the ring. This setting is often used with a series of small, round diamonds with high brilliance. The stones are not raised in this setting, so they are relatively protected from wear and tear.
Pave settings. The Pave setting involves lots of tiny diamonds, set in a ring so that they look like a paved cobblestone street or a carpet of diamonds. This technique is very striking, but it requires a lot of skill and can be quite expensive--even more so than the diamonds themselves.
Flush settings. With a flush setting, the diamond is sunk so that its top is level with the metal band. This setting does not allow light in as well as a more exposed setting, but some women love the look of tiny diamonds glittering like stars in the sky.
The Right Metals Make a Difference
The metal you use in the band makes a big difference as well. Some women prefer certain metals over others, so make sure you know her tastes if you're surprising her.
Yellow gold. Yellow gold is mixed with alloys such as zinc and copper to give it that golden glow. It's a soft and may bend or shift shape with time, but will not chip or fade. The amount of gold in a yellow gold ring is measured in karats (not the same as the "carats" that measure weight in a diamond). The more karats of gold in a yellow gold ring, the more yellow it will appear.
White gold. White gold is mixed with alloys such as silver and palladium. In past decades, nickel was used as an alloy in white gold. However, nickel can cause allergic reactions in some people, so it's best to avoid white gold with nickel alloys.
White gold's natural color is a bit more gray than white. To give it that cool white sheen, white gold is usually coated in a metal called rhodium. Rhodium plating can wear away with time. To keep a white gold ring looking its best, it must be re-plated once a year or so.
Because all white gold rings are coated with rhodium, the amount of gold in the ring won't affect the color. A nine-karat white-gold ring will look just as white as an 18-karat ring.
Rose gold. Rose gold is a striking and unique golden-pink color achieved by mixing gold with copper alloy. It's usually as expensive as yellow gold, and a bit more affordable than white gold. It's not as common in engagement rings as yellow and white gold, although it can sometimes be found as an accent metal. Typically, the more gold in the ring, the more subtle the color. The rosy blush of this metal can also intensify with age, due to tarnishing of the copper.
Platinum. Platinum is extremely popular as an engagement ring metal because it's tougher and more durable than gold. It has a bright, metallic color that's more silvery than white gold. It tends to be more expensive than gold, as it's more rare.
Platinum can acquire a patina over time, which can be removed with soap, water, and a gentle scrub with a soft-bristled brush.
You can create your own engagement ring for a more personal ring than what you'd find in a store. It's a great way to surprise her--or bring a couple together. Know what she likes in terms of metal, stones, and settings, and you're sure to design an engagement ring she'll love.
Winston Cole
www.exquisite-engagement-rings.com [http://www.exquisite-engagement-rings.com]
Diamond, Platinum, Antique, Custom Engagement Rings
Brownsack Enterprise Inc.
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