Is there such a thing as the perfect engagement ring?
I get asked this question a lot – so much so that I wrote a book on exactly that subject (and there’s a link to buy it at the end of this article). I also made a film about it, which you can watch here. It’s a very hot topic in my world.
So, is there such a thing as the perfect engagement ring? The answer is yes, there is. Can I describe it to you? No, because the perfect engagement ring is perfect only to the person who buys it or the person who wears it (and hopefully to both).
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder and what might be perfect to me may not be perfect for you – and vice versa.
The actress, Elizabeth Taylor, was given the world’s most expensive diamond engagement ring, valued at $8.8 million, by Richard Burton. But the fact it’s the world’s most expensive ring doesn’t, de facto, also make it the world’s most perfect ring, because you might hate it.
So, I don’t find the perfect engagement ring, I help people to find their perfect engagement ring.
I do that by listening to what they think they’re looking for and then using that knowledge and my own experience and expertise to identify a range of possible options for them to look at.
People often make the mistake of thinking the more money they spend, the more perfect the ring they’ll get. But that’s not true, either. Money buys you quality, certainly – and for that reason alone, it’s worth investing the most you can sensibly afford – but it doesn’t buy you perfection.
A £1,000 diamond engagement ring has as much likelihood of being someone’s perfect ring as the $8.8 million Elizabeth Taylor ring. It’s just that the Taylor ring will be of a much higher quality.
We talk about the 4 Cs in a diamond – colour, cut, clarity and carat. These refer to a diamond’s quality, and once I know what the budget is for a diamond engagement ring, I know what sort of quality we’re looking at.
Assuming the person proposing has done their secret squirrel bit and got a good idea of his intended’s taste in jewellery, I can then source the kinds of stones that might one day be part of something that, to its wearer, is completely and utterly perfect.
I’ll also have an idea of the kind of ring style that will fit both the stone that will become its centrepiece as well as the style of the person who’ll be wearing it.
This is where I must issue something of a general health warning about choosing a diamond engagement ring: it’s not at all unusual for the person proposing to get everything completely wrong.
This usually happens when the person doing the choosing and the asking goes off half-cocked and buys an off-the-shelf ring from a High Street store or, worse, an online retailer. I like to think that by using my knowledge and experience, I get it right most of the time.
But the truth is, there’s always going to be a better chance of ending up with the perfect diamond engagement ring if the person who’s going to wear it is involved in choosing it. So, I’d recommend using a nice token ring for the proposal and then both of you coming to see me to go through the adventure of making something perfect to wear.
No, that’s not the most romantic way of doing it, I know – but perfection isn’t something you can guess at, and if you’re going to invest a significant sum of money in something you expect someone else to wear for the rest of their life, it might be worth making a small sacrifice with the big romantic gesture!
Want to know more? Buy Lewis’s book on how to choose the perfect engagement ring and get it right first time.
