Matching Diamonds for a Three-Stone Ring

[rebski]

Before we got engaged, my now-husband had asked whether I would be okay with receiving a family heirloom stone, which was fine with me. Actually, I thought it was pretty sweet that his family loved me enough to want me to have the stone from his great-grandmother's ring. Anyway, the stone is .4 carat, and my husband had wanted something larger than that for me, so he planned to use it as a side stone in a three-stone ring. He wanted to buy another .4 carat stone and a .75 carat center stone. However, at Jared, they convinced him to set the heirloom stone in a pendant as a wedding gift and buy a 1 carat solitaire. My husband still really wants me to have his great-grandmother's stone set into a three-stone engagement ring with my 1 carat stone. I think it's a really sweet, sentimental sort of idea and think that three-stone rings can be gorgeous. I have a couple concerns, though.

One is proportion. I personally prefer side stones around .25 carat each with a 1 carat center stone. I've tried to find some examples of rings with similarly sized diamonds together to see just what it would look like. I've tried holding the pendant up next to my ring, but it's still hard to envision how it would look together in ring form. If anyone has very similarly sized stones in a ring, I'd love to see some pictures.

Second is color. I believe my 1 carat stone is and E, while my husband thinks the .4 carat stone is an H. We do have this information stored away somewhere; we just don't remember everything off the tops of our heads. Anyway, when I put the stones together, I could tell that the smaller stone is yellower when I held it under a light. I haven't taken it out to test it out in different lighting, though. Do you think that it would look bad to have my E between two H's?

 

[diamondseeker2006]

It is imperative for the cut and color to be close. Is the family stone a modern round brilliant or an old cut?

 

[rebski]

Sorry. I should have specified that the family stone is a modern round brilliant.

 

[SB621]

Are the stones both graded by the same lab? Because an EGL and GIA have different color grading criteria. If you do decide to do a 3 stone then I would not go to Jareds or a mall store to have it made. I would personally go with IDG or WF. Have them source a matching stone.

As far as proportions for a 1ct center I would probably like the .4ct sides (making it .8ctw). There is a three stone topic floating around PS somewhere but when I looked at it awhile ago I couldn't remember if people posted stats on their rings.

Finally I'm reading alot of my DH wants to do this, and it is very sweet of DH for this...but what do you want? Do you like the pendant with the family diamond in it? Or would you prefer a 3 stone.

 

[rebski]

I am not sure whether they were graded by the same lab. I do know that the difference is visible (though not necessarily very noticeable), and I guess it's really up to me to decide whether I think the color difference is going to bug me.

Don't worry--we wouldn't get the new setting from Jared. We live in the DC area, so we were considering doing a custom setting with Quest or Dominion. I've considered WhiteFlash but like the idea of being able to meet with someone in person.

I definitely want to do something different with the ring, though I don't know that I necessarily want to do what my husband wants. I do like three-stone rings in general and would be totally on-board with that if not for my concerns about the color and proportions. When he first suggested changing the ring back before the wedding, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of changing anything because I wanted to keep the original engagement ring for sentimental reasons. However, there were some things about the ring that just kept getting worse whenever we'd take it back to Jared for the cleanings/inspections. There are small channel-set accent stones (see http://design.jared-diamonds.com/engagement-rings/settings-with-sidestones/ring/item9_10611/) that were always loose. They kept just putting beads of gold on top of the stones to hold them in, which looks pretty horrible. I asked if they could do something better to fix it, and they just offered to give us a new setting of the same type. At that time, I was still in the "I really want to keep the original ring" mindset, so I declined the offer of a new setting and asked them to do as much as they could to smooth out those problems. Then I discovered from looking online that the setting is only meant to hold up to a .68 ct round stone. No wonder the accent stones were loose--they had to expand the prongs for the center stone so far that it threw everything off balance. Anyway, I went from telling my husband that I might consider "upgrading" my ring to do what he had in mind for some far-off anniversary to deciding that we probably should do something now.

I don't wear the pendant. My husband has suggested that maybe we could just go for a different solitaire setting for the engagement ring and do something else that I would wear more with the family stone.

 

[Logan Sapphire]

Hi Rebski-

I have almost the exact same ring you're considering! .41ct and .42ct H color sides and .78ct E center made by Quest! I know many people don't care for the look, which is closer to all three stones appearing more similarly-sized, as opposed to a three stone where the center is the star.

I can see the color difference from the side only if I really look for it. At a casual glance, there's absolutely no way to tell.

 

[rebski]

Logan Sapphire,

I think I've mainly been afraid that I'd end up with a ring that looks like the engagement ring one of my friends has, where there is barely any size difference among the stones, but I don't want to ask her what size stones she has. That might be seen as rude. Anyway, there's more visible difference (size-wise) between stones in your ring than I'd been picturing for that combination, and there would be a bit more difference yet for mine. I went and got the pendant to put it up next to my ring again today, and I do think I like them more together than I did the last time I did that. But again, I wanted to see it together in an actual ring, so thank you so much for letting me see some pictures of your ring! It's quite lovely.

Also, I'm glad to hear that your H's and your E are working well together. It makes me feel a lot better about putting these stones together.

Lastly, what did you think of Quest? Just from what I've read about various places, Quest is probably the place we're considering most seriously. I'd love to hear how everything went for you, though.

 

[milton333]

The classic Tiffany-style 3-stone is 2:1 ratio of carat weight to one of the side stones (e.g., 1 ct center, .5 ct sides). It's a very classic look. When you follow that rule, you get side stones that are generally about 76-78% the diameter of the center stone. So, they're close in size, but there's a noticeable size difference. Logan Sapphire's ring is right around those proportions.

I'm personally a big fan of the "Tiffany rule" and love that look for a 3-stone, particularly after you've been married for a bit.

Unless the family stone has GIA or AGS grading, you're likely going to want to get it unmounted and appraised for color to GIA standards (I'm sure someone can recommend an appraiser in your area). Then put the unmounted family stone next to your center stone and see how you feel.

One thing you didn't mention, if the cut of the .4 is not up to par for you, you might look into a recut to improve its optical performance, which can make it look brighter and color less noticeable. So your appraiser should give you an idea of cut quality when looking at the family stone.

I'd go into information-gathering mode right now to see what you're working with with the family stone.

But you might also consider maybe earrings, if you don't feel that the family stone will work well with your e-ring.