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Introduction and General Thoughts

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gregc4

Rough_Rock
Joined
Jun 20, 2012
Messages
11
Hello,

I'm Greg and I am going to be getting married out in Las Vegas in August. I met my wonderful girlfriend/fiancé a little over a year ago and fell in love. We both knew very soon that we wanted to share our lives together. Everything has been wonderful and we are so excited about our wedding and honeymoon in Vegas. We both have good jobs and are generally happy people.

In our search and research for a diamond we are becoming unhappy people lol jk.

To spend thousands of dollars on something that we both know very little about is extremely scary and daunting. I have been trolling this forum for a while now and just created an account to take the plunge and ask for help.

I don’t want to come off as someone that has done little to no research and just pops up on this forum so someone can pick out a diamond for me. I love researching things on the internet and NEVER purchase a product without reading reviews and becoming somewhat knowledgeable about what I’m buying. I just bought a pretty nice camera and spent about 3-4 hours researching and reading reviews and feel good about the choice I made. I have spent about 20-25 hours (actual computer time) reading and researching about diamonds only to be left feeling like it was a waste of time. I have a new found respect for gemologists and people that understand diamond grading.

We have looked at a few diamonds in retail stores but everything we talked about before walking in the store seemed to go out the window when we looked at the first stone.

“WOW, IT’S SHINY!” That’s about all I could muster. It was a complete waste of time and I had no idea what I was looking at. Everything I read about seemed to jump ship from my mind.

I have been to quite a few of the websites found on Pricescope like Whiteflash, Good Old Gold, Blue Nile, etc.
My fiancé prefers a simple setting in white gold or platinum. I have a budget of $4,000.00. I know that is not a lot of money but it is what it is.

I’m not really asking any questions in this post as I just felt the need to type my thoughts and say hello. I also would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all the members of this forum for making it the amazing resource that it is.

My next course of action will be to post some links to diamonds that I think I might be interested in and then read your thoughts and hopefully gain a little better understanding.
Thanks,
Greg
 
Welcome, Greg! Do you know what the lowest color is that she'd be comfortable with? Obviously we'll recommend that you go with a simple solitaire setting in order to put most of your money into the diamond.
 
Please feel free to ask participants when the time is right. Folks here just love to help out consumers do a great job and to have a good time while they shop.
 
diamondseeker2006|1340211281|3220249 said:
Welcome, Greg! Do you know what the lowest color is that she'd be comfortable with? Obviously we'll recommend that you go with a simple solitaire setting in order to put most of your money into the diamond.
Click to expand...

Hi and thanks for responding. I'm thinking h or i. Since typing my OP I keep thinking about my $4,000.00 limit. The only reason I have come up with that number is I'm trying not to finance any of the purchase and that's about what I have on hand for a diamond purchase. The reality is that I think I might just have to suck it up and spend $6,000.00 and finance some of it. However that would have to include the setting.

Greg
 
You can get a nice ring with your original $4000 budget.

With $6000 you can go bigger or get a more elaborate setting.

What size are you looking for? Round?

What type of setting does she want?
 
Statefan42|1340214459|3220302 said:
You can get a nice ring with your original $4000 budget.

With $6000 you can go bigger or get a more elaborate setting.

What size are you looking for? Round?

What type of setting does she want?
Click to expand...

Hi,

We are looking for around 1 carat diamond. She prefers a plain setting in platinum or white gold.
 
mogster|1340216409|3220321 said:
How about:

diamond
1) http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI1-Excellent-Cut-Round-Diamond-1490769.asp (check if eye clean)
2) http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/I-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1398077.asp (check if eye clean)

with

setting
http://www.jamesallen.com/engagement-ringssolitairering/item_57-8435.asp

?

With a $4k budget, you can get a very lovely .80 ct. round diamond with simple 18k solitaire setting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions. I think part of my reason to increase my spending is that I don't want to get her anything smaller than around 1.00 carat. I just hate paying finance charges!!
 
Welcome,

You're in good hands here. Lots of super smart diamond people to help you!

No stress allowed. :))
 
Think if you plan on an inexpensive solitaire setting...say $350, then you can spend the rest on the diamond. I am not opposed to financing a portion particularly if it can be paid off in a year. I do know that GOG offers interest free for 6 months and after that interest kicks in. You might want to find out details about that.

But if you really want a carat, you really do need to bump up to $6000. Prices have been rising over the last year and a half, and it is not even easy to get a 1 ct. for $6000 at this point. You'll be looking at around I-J SI1-SI2..And you may need to look in the .90 range, too.

http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1421578.asp?b=16&a=12&c=77&cid=131

http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamond/9498/

http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamond/9122/
 
diamondseeker2006|1340217876|3220351 said:
Think if you plan on an inexpensive solitaire setting...say $350, then you can spend the rest on the diamond. I am not opposed to financing a portion particularly if it can be paid off in a year. I do know that GOG offers interest free for 6 months and after that interest kicks in. You might want to find out details about that.

But if you really want a carat, you really do need to bump up to $6000. Prices have been rising over the last year and a half, and it is not even easy to get a 1 ct. for $6000 at this point. You'll be looking at around I-J SI1-SI2..And you may need to look in the .90 range, too.

http://www.jamesallen.com/diamonds/J-SI1-Ideal-Cut-Round-Diamond-1421578.asp?b=16&a=12&c=77&cid=131

http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamond/9498/
Click to expand...


I am definitely going to be looking into the interest free financing. 6 months would be plenty of time to cover the extra $2,000.00 in cost. What I hate about interest free for 6 months or a year is that ALL the interest kicks in if you don't pay it off within the 6 months or year.

So far I am feeling a lot of relief since posting and seeing all of your responses. Thanks!
 
Do you know if she likes antique diamonds? You can find an approximately 1 carat stone for your original budget of 4 gs (maybe less). You can also check out our Pre-loved forum here on Pricescope under the Pricescope Cafe. A diamond with your desired specs might just show up. Welcome and I hope you find a lovely ring!
 
I have heard your comment before when my BF and I went ring shopping - all he could muster was "that's shiny." I guess guys are just like that. That makes me feel better!!
 
OK here are some more thoughts. We spent about 4 hours last night reading, searching & comparing diamonds :read: . We started at Whiteflash and found some very nice diamonds. We then searched Blue Nile and found similar prices on comparable diamonds. We then decided to start Googling things like "how not to get screwed when buying a diamond" etc. From those searches we came across a website called diamond exchange and from diamond exchange we found a website that reviews online diamond retailers.

I cannot remember the name and of course cannot find the site right now but the conclusion was that Union Diamond and Blue Nile are the 2 top online retailers for Customer Service and price comparison etc, etc. So off we went to Union Diamond and found the prices to be much much better. After an hour or so on Union Diamond we noticed that the price in diamonds almost doubled when we changed our search criteria to include only GIA and AGS results. The EGL certified diamonds were about half as much as the GIA certified ones. I would click the box for EGL and found 4000 dollar diamonds that seemed nice and then unclick EGL and the same search criteria returned diamonds that cost 8000.

That really bothered us so we started googling information about the different grading companies. We of course came upon the information listed on Pricescope and read it thoroughly. This left us feeling confused and pretty much back where I/We started. It seems that no matter how much research we do and how educated we become about diamonds, we still know nothing! I do however feel pretty good about buying a diamond from Whiteflash, Union Diamond or Blue Nile from the reviews we read on iVouch.

1 carat, H-I color, up to SI1 with an ideal cut is what we think we are looking for. I just want it to be sparkly on her finger. None of her friends are going to break out an ideal scope and grade her ring lol. When we go to dinner and she reaches for the glass of water and the ring sparkles and her friend says "o that's pretty" is what we are looking for. I would like to buy from Blue Nile as they have 0% financing for a year. That coupled with the $4,000.00 - $5,000.00 we have saved allows us to bump it up a bit for a nicer stone/setting. We are still trying to keep it at around $6,000.00 total stone/setting.

Going back to my original post I wrote "I don’t want to come off as someone that has done little to no research and just pops up on this forum so someone can pick out a diamond for me"

I/We have done lots of research but at this point I would like to retract part of that statement and scream HELP!! Someone pick a diamond out for me LOL!!

Thanks,

Greg
 
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