Well, you know, it’s interesting. I have a lot of people sometime ask me, “What should I do first when I’m looking for a diamond engagement ring?”
I think the biggest thing most people do today is they hop on the Internet, they do a little searching to see what’s out there, what kind of options they have. They may talk to mom and dad or a good friend and say, “Hey, where did you buy your ring?” Or, “Do you have any advice on where I should go to buy my ring?”
My personal opinion is you need to start first and just do a little research. I’d hop online. I’d do a little learning about how diamonds are cut, how they’re polished. I’d investigate a little bit about the four C’s, which we’ve all come to know about, diamond weight, the cut, the clarity, again, as I said, the carat weight, and then the overall color.
Here at D&R House of Diamonds, one of the things that we love to do, my partner and I, Rich, is we love to enjoy showing a selection of diamonds. We think that when you’re going to buy a beautiful diamond engagement ring, the biggest trap people fall into is they’re in a store and they happen to be looking at a particular style ring and they end up purchasing the diamond that’s in the ring already. They really didn’t have a choice to choose from a selection of stones.
Here at D&R House of Diamonds, we believe you purchase the diamond, and you purchase it loose. You look at the diamond, examine the diamond, get to see the diamond in relationship to a multitude of other stones, and pick the one that appeals best to you.
One of our focuses during that process is to assist you and coach you in the process of what to look for, what to look for as far as the clarity of the diamond, what to look for as far as the cut, what to look for as far as the overall polish, again the color. All of those factors make a huge difference. And when you’re looking at a single stone, specifically if you’re thinking about purchasing online, you click and you get a diamond that comes in the mail, and you just end up liking it because it’s your only choice.
But given a selection of five to ten different gems, I’m sure you would probably find one of the group that appealed to you the most. And that’s our specialty, once again. So we go through that process of giving you the opportunity to select from a multitude of diamonds, and then we start deciding on the fashion of the ring. What is the design that she might like or her input?
We think it kind of boils down to two different categories. One category would be contemporary, or one might be more vintage. Today the trend is a little more towards vintage designs. That’s with pave diamonds, halo designs, very much from an art deco period, where a few years ago it was very much more contemporary, where it was traditional metals with not a lot of accent diamonds.
So we carry the gamut of style. But one of the things we specialize is in custom design. Sometimes I’ll have a client come in and she’ll look at a particular ring and she likes that aspect of the ring, but there’s another ring that she likes just slightly better. And so it’s the combination of those two designs, where we can create or custom design a ring that has both elements to suit her needs.
But overall, those are the things that I think when you’re first considering purchasing a diamond, you want to do your research. I think you definitely want to choose from a selection, and you want to take a look at all the different options out there, there are as far as fashion and styling.
And here at D&R Diamonds, we specialize in all of that, and we’d love to have an opportunity to help you do that. So come see us. We’re above Tivoli Village in Las Vegas, Suite 390. Thank you.
Dave Padgett
Owner/Partner D&R House of Diamonds
Graduate Diamonds GIA