A little help with the E ring please

I've been searching for e rings for about a month now and the overwhelming amount of information has been getting to much.  I have spoken briefly with my girlfriend about the matter and have managed to get the main details I need from her.  I've figured out that my budget is about $5,500.  I was hoping to get a 1ct ideal cut colorless diamond maybe VS1 OR VS2 at that price from looking around on Blue Nile and Mondera.  The three cuts that I had to choose from were Asscher, Princess & Cushion, in the order of popularity.  From talking to some jewelers they have made me believe that an Asscher diamond has to be ideal or it's brilliance will be very minimal and that also it shouldn't be parried with a pave band because it will have to much clutter, is this true? So here are a few more questions.  Also a few things that I have just realized is that the diameter of the diamond is what makes it look but and the brightness comes from the Florence?

Should and Asscher diamond not be parried with a pave band and does it need to be ideal?
Can I get a Princess cut 1c on platinum band for 5,500?
Would you buy from Blue Nile or Mondera?

Thank you very much for any help you can provides in advance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any 'conspiracy theory of history' for a search for 'conspiracies' means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds."

-Murray N. Rothbard, in The Anatomy of the State



John Swinton [1829-1901] Chief Editorial Writer of the New York Times (Considered "the Dean of his Profession" by his peers), when asked to toast an 'Independent Press' in a gathering at the National Press Club, circa 1880

"There is no such thing in America as an independent press unless it is in the country towns. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dare express an honest opinion. If you express it you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid... for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things....

The business of the New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and sell his country and race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same thing, his salary. You know this, and I know it and what foolery to be toasting an 'independent press.' We are tools, and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, all are the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."