It''s a lovely ring
I highly recommend Quest! both Pete and Hahn are excellent to work with and so helpful. They provide you with CAD images of the design, and I think if you ask they''ll show you the wax too although Pete told me that the wax tends to be blockier and not look much like the finished product and I was on a short timeline so I didn''t want to add to the turnaround time w/ approving the waxes.
Even though Quest can be pretty busy, there''s always someone, usually Hahn to answer the phone, and Pete''s very good about calling you back if he''s with a customer. He''s very knowledgeable and his very specific and excellent advice concerning your needs really inspires confidence that he knows what he is doing. During your one on one time with him, you will feel that you are his only customer and his top priority. Their quotes are very competitive with other places, although it can be hard to compare since not every place will make a custom ring the same way.
My fiance''s ring size is less than 3, so the ring is quite sizeable to me. But then I don''t often stare at it everyday so there is no shrinkage in my eyes
We used 1pt melee diamonds on the halo I think, possible 1.5pt melee on the shank, I forget. I was trying to get the halo as thin as possible w/ the milligraining and bezel setting.
While shopping for the sapphire, which I did primarily online (the stock in 100% of the stores I went to just were not the size, shape or color I was looking for), i saw prices ranging from $500 to $3000. Square cushion cut sapphires seems to be tough to find (non-square ones abound), and finding one that wasn''t too large was a challenge (a lot of 2+ ct stones out there). In the end I went with cherrypicked after having a few of their stones maile d out to me. The prices for their unheated sapphires go for around 1400 to 2500 per carat for the nice stuff. You pay somewhat of a premium, but I didn''t have the time to check out many different stones. There were 1 or 2 at the natural sapphire company I would have wanted to look at, but it was very hard to judge from the images on their old website. Also nsc''s sapphires often only come with a cert from their store.
Since I sourced the sapphire myself, I don''t have any opinion about having quest find one for you. It may be easier if you are located near them and can see the gemstones in person. I''m sure they would do an excellent job.
I''ll see if I can put the images somewhere more accessible once I find them again.
