Back to the Drawing Board -- Need Help

[kuttacondition]

Ok, so here's the reader's digest condensed version of how I ended up back at the drawing board and need some advice. First off, I'd like to thank everyone on this forum. Reading through past posts I've learned a lot and answered most of my questions for this logical/illogical engagement ring purchase.
Timeline:
1) Met positively amazing girl, dated for a couple years , decided to propose. I have many slightly zany proposal ideas, but alas, I am presently ringless.
2) Picked out ring in a virtual manner consulting with Whiteflash (I live in Houston) and Angara through, settled on ~1 ct, VS1, F color round with the sleekline Legato solitaire setting.
3) Consulted with one of Jillian's best friends and while she really liked the setting, she suspected that Jillian was looking for some a little more unique. This confirmed my suspicions about Jillian's taste in engagement rings. Jillian is a creative, spontaneous type. To give you an idea some of her current favorite possessions are creatures we've made out of chiyogami paper, a crazy quilt she brought back from the middle east, complete with shards of mirrors to depict the night sky and interesting lamps from ikea. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30102747
4) Consequently I've become ensure of setting, diamond shape, basically everything other than I'm going to propose to this girl.
5) Risking spoiling the surprise, I decided to take Jillian to a local B&M claiming to be the world's largest engagement ring store. Out of the 300 or so ring varieties -- exactly 0 met her requirements. The end result was a diplomatic "I'll love anything you get me."


What I've learned:

1) 1 Ct might be too big, she wears a size 4.5 band and found most of the rings too ostentatious.
2) She like pears and possibly marquise shapes.
3) Doesn't have to be a diamond, but in principle I'd like to get her diamonds. Could be faintly colored but that is probably out of my price range for natural stones.
3) She likes delicate, subtle settings suggesting nature. Also, she seems to the prefer the wedding bands to the engagement rings. She considered the bands on all the rings she tried on to be too thick.
In addition, we've discovered that her dad and my dad both set their engagement rings for the respective spouses.

Way forward with proposal:
Well, I'm open to them. One idea was to find a pair of high quality pear diamonds ~ 0.8 Ct total weight and work with a designer to come up with a design similar to http://www.szul.com/product_details.asp?ProdId=PRR3509RB but in platinum with a better flow.
Budget is ~$9000

Questions for pricescope:

Does this sound doable?
Any suggestions for a designer or prexisting setting?
How thin can you go on a platinum or palladium band?
Source for fairly matched pear diamonds?
If I'm matching the diamonds myself, how close do they need to be in weight and cut for one not to be able to tell with the naked eye?
Thanks for your help,

Andrew

 

[mercoledi]

Funky options exist! have you checked out http://www.niwaka.com/?

 

[E B]

kutta,

I know you've already got a design in mind, but when you said she likes marquise diamonds and is a fan of unique/nature, I thought of Greenlake Jewelers and in particular, MAchick's beautiful marquise solitaire (from Greenlake):

Machick's GLJ E-Ring (scroll down for pictures of the completed ring)

(I hope you don't mind my linking your gorgeous e-ring, MAchick!)

 

[kuttacondition]

Thanks for the hot tips, both look quite promising. Niwaka has some really neat stuff -- although the consensus here seems to be that their diamonds prices are high. That said, I think that if the end goal is simply to get something I know she would love while spending what I have set aside, that can be accomplished. I guess there are worse things than a girl who doesn''t want too large a diamond. Alternatively, perhaps I could work with Whiteflash or someone else to come up with a Niwaka inspired design. Too bad, we were just in New York a couple weeks ago...

As for Greenlake, I might give them a call. I''m originally from Seattle and my parents live near their shop.

Thanks.
Andrew

 

[devientdrow]

Haha I was just going to suggest Niwaka as well! I have a friend who is married, she is VERY arty and creative. Currently her wedding set is a star sapphire in titanium and a thinner version of her hubbys titanium band. She was very anti diamond (as was I until I got one) but now that her financial situation is different she''s thinking of one. She''s also very picky, I thought Nikwaka was perfect for her too. When you look at them the flow is sooooooo gorgeous...All the bands are made to contour the erings perfectly. All the settings diamonds seem so unobtrusive to me. I think it''s awesome.

If you go the other way have you thought of doing one band for her? I see some really awesome bands out there that have motifs, like leaves or vines that have stones interspersed in them. I LOVE the studio 311 collection. The have a celtic motif on some of them but the ones I have in the link are considered the contemporary collection. Seems like she would like the Starry Night collection or Garden Gate:

http://www.studio311.com/Studio311/Collections/Contemporary.html

Besides band you''ll see they do matching erings too.