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Building FiveStone - BlueNile SI, WF ACA or JA TrueHeart?

nediag

Rough_Rock
Joined
Dec 7, 2012
Messages
7
Hey Everyone!

Longtime lurker, first time poster and wanted to first say a huge thank you to the wealth of information here on PS and to all the generous souls who've spent countless hours giving back advice.

I'm planning on proposing in the early part of 2013, and wanted to ask your opinions or better options that I can go with versus what I am thinking.

I have a strong idea of the style of ring that she wants, validated by herself & her friends, she just has no idea "when" or "how" I will propose. Her ring size is 4.75 - 5. I have a rough budget of 15K for everything, max.

The style is likely going to be building a custom ring from a local jeweler (or maybe even one of the online retailers?) of a ring setting similar to this A Jaffe five stone ring: http://goo.gl/bvrjy

Where I would like some help on is around the center stone selection, and I am looking seriously at the following brands (BlueNile Signature Ideal, WhiteFlash A CUT ABOVE, and JamesAllen TrueHearts).

These are the stones I am looking at:

Other info:
Planning on having the settling/band be in Platinum, with the following side stones: 4x 0.31ct BlueNile Ideal http://goo.gl/irG1o. I know that it's usually advised to go with a whiter color stone with a plat setting, but I've seen and read on this forum on many members with I/J diamonds with plat/white gold rings that say you can't even tell.

Any suggestions for the center cut or other thoughts to help? :)

Thank you for the help & Cheers,
 
Re: Building FiveStone - BlueNile SI, WF ACA or JA TrueHeart

Unless you have an awesome local jeweler who you know well and trust with this project, I'd probably stick to an online vendor who is experienced with custom 5 stone projects.

I don't have an opinion on the centre stones you are looking at but for such a project I'd look at whiteflash to provide you with all of the stones and to custom design the setting. They have made some beautiful 5 stones in the past. I don't think blue Nile does custom and I haven't had any experience with James Allen, but I believe they do custom. Another vendor you may wish to consider is Brian Gavin Diamonds. They have experience with custom 5 stone rings too.
 
Re: Building FiveStone - BlueNile SI, WF ACA or JA TrueHeart

My only suggestion thus far is smaller side stones. 0.20 to 0.25ct each maximum.
 
Re: Building FiveStone - BlueNile SI, WF ACA or JA TrueHeart

@hawaiianorangetree: Excellent point. I'll start up the conversation soon with WF and perhaps JA to see what they can do in terms of replicating the five stone design I am interested in.

@dreamer: Ah, thanks. Yeah, I was leaning to 0.25 max when I was just considering a 1.33 center diamond, then considered 0.3 sides when I was looking at the BN 1.5 and JA 1.6 size diamonds.
 
Re: Building FiveStone - BlueNile SI, WF ACA or JA TrueHeart

As a question related to the original poster's: does anyone have any information on how Blue Nile's "Signature Ideal" compares with AGS-0? I'd lean toward AGS-0 myself, but am curious what others think. Is there some premium associated with AGS-0 diamonds as compared to one of Blue Nile's "signature ideals?"

Best of luck with the ring project :)
 
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