I have to start by saying I can not thank Mr. Wink Jones of High Performance Diamonds enough for the help and guidance that he provided through one of the most stressful times of my life. I think when someone starts the process of starting to look for a diamond they have to take a long look in the mirror and decide what type of personality/preferences they have. Personally I will openly admit that I am an extremely "type A" person that can sometimes be hard to handle in terms of my expectations. Around 6 months ago I decided that I was going to start trying to learn as much as possible about diamonds and what I needed to do to find the perfect match. Obviously I knew I wanted an "eye clean" diamond but that was just the beginning. I started looking through bluenile and ritani at first and was really impressed with their prices but something just didn't seem right. How could these diamonds be so deeply discounted when looking through other online vendor's inventory? This question definitely left an uneasy feeling in my stomach. After some additional sifting through the countless number of online sources I was lucky enough to stumble across Todd Gray of niceice.com and that is where things really started to get interesting.
In the future if any of my friends ever ask for my advice on where to look online for information on how to purchase a one of a kind, "super ideal" diamond I plan on referring them to speak with Todd from the start. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I would not have been introduced to Wink if Todd wouldn't have pointed me in his direction. In my opinion, when starting to look for the perfect diamond I would say one of the most beneficial articles that you can read is Todd's 5 minutes to success piece. Not only does this lay down the strict parameters that everyone should really try to stick too if they want to find the perfect diamond but it also is very informative and will help build the base of what you should use as your foundation when looking for the diamond that you want to give to the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. For me I believe that I have a unique girl and because of this I wanted to find a diamond that would be a show stopper. The last piece of advice I would like to give would be to definitely take advantage of Todd's diamond concierge service. It is free and he has a wealth of knowledge from his time spent in the diamond industry that in my opinion in invaluable. As anyone that is reading this can see I only have nice things to say about my experience working with Todd as well.
As I mentioned in my previous paragraph my experience truly started with Todd and his diamond concierge service. I told him that I wanted a 2 carat, ideal cut diamond preferably H/I color round brilliant cut diamond. I sent him my initial choices and he told me based off of his criteria what he thought the best stone was. I read and digested all of the information that he told me but it still didn't feel right. Just based off of personal preference the huge online vendors don't really appeal to me because I don't think they really make it an individualized experience and that was really important to me so we moved on to another round of diamonds. I looked at Brian Gavin's signature diamonds and have to say that all of their inventory was very impressive but they didn't have anything that really fit with what I wanted. In addition, I looked at Whiteflash's A Cut Above line and actually found a couple choices that I sent to Todd. In addition, to the choices from Whiteflash, I sent one diamond that really caught my eye when Todd suggested I check out High Performance Diamonds as well. Todd once again took the time to look through all of the choices and in the end recommended the Cafted by Infinity diamond and this is where my experience really took off.
I was introduced to Wink on the 6th of February and I have to say dealing with him and high performance diamonds has been an absolute dream come true. I mean all anyone has to do is search his name or high performance diamonds on this forum and you will see he has an absolutely pristine reputation as not only being a great guy but also another invaluable source of information when it comes to purchasing the perfect diamond. Like I said in my last paragraph I think the diamonds from Brian Gavin, Whiteflash, etc are amazing but when it comes to the most perfect, ideal cut diamond I think it is hard to beat a Crafted by Infinity diamond. During my many conversations with Wink we talked about how Mr. Paul Slegers personally oversees the cutting of only 1,000 diamonds per year. Just stop and think about that. Most of the huge diamond cutting houses in America can cut around 10,000 diamonds per MONTH. This really was one of the most important factors that I thought about during the process because when you buy a Crafted by Infinity diamond you know exactly what you are going to get because Mr. Slegers personally oversees the cutting of every diamond that carries the Crafted by Infinity brand. And let me just say after receiving my diamond in the mail it is unlike anything I have ever seen. I mean I looked at it so long that I basically gave myself a migraine. I mean I just couldn't stop. During the process Wink was there for me whenever I emailed or called no matter what time it was. You will be hard pressed to find any online vendor that has the customer support or truly cares about the customer and his experience as much as Wink does. If you take the time to watch some of the youtube videos that he has created you will see that he is very open about wanting to sell the absolute, most perfect diamonds and not simply the cheapest diamonds. Once again depending on your personality you might say, "I want to find the absolute cheapest diamond and this isn't for me" but that definitely wasn't the case with me.
Now a little about the diamond that I ended up choosing. I ended up going with a 2.12 I VS2 Crafted by Infinity diamond and I couldn't be happier with my choice. When I received the diamond I could not believe the amount of brilliance and fire that it exhibited. It honestly is unlike anything I have ever seen in a jewelry store. Wink took the time to make a great video to send me during the process and although it still looks phenomenal in the initial video it looks 100x better in person. I have attached the video below. I am excited to hear what people think.
http://highperformancediamonds.com/index.php?page=view-id-diamond-infinity-new&id=1364
http://handshake2.jivesystems.com/videos/adnm4jtozw?tag=90543
In addition, I have attached the platinum setting that I am currently having made through Tacori.
http://www.tacori.com/engagement/ht254725rd9.html
In closing, I want to just say one more time how happy I am with my complete experience with Wink. Not only does he sell the best diamonds in Crafted by Infinity (in my personal opinion) but he will also go out of his way to make your diamond buying experience as stress free as possible. One thing that will always stick out to me is that he doesn't treat you simply like a number, but rather he treats you like an actual person. This is very rare when making any online purchase, much less a diamond. Once again if you want to purchase a diamond that will turn heads when you fiancee walks across the room go with a Crafted by Infinity diamond and let Wink help you out. I know that after my experience he definitely has a customer for life.
In the future if any of my friends ever ask for my advice on where to look online for information on how to purchase a one of a kind, "super ideal" diamond I plan on referring them to speak with Todd from the start. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I would not have been introduced to Wink if Todd wouldn't have pointed me in his direction. In my opinion, when starting to look for the perfect diamond I would say one of the most beneficial articles that you can read is Todd's 5 minutes to success piece. Not only does this lay down the strict parameters that everyone should really try to stick too if they want to find the perfect diamond but it also is very informative and will help build the base of what you should use as your foundation when looking for the diamond that you want to give to the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. For me I believe that I have a unique girl and because of this I wanted to find a diamond that would be a show stopper. The last piece of advice I would like to give would be to definitely take advantage of Todd's diamond concierge service. It is free and he has a wealth of knowledge from his time spent in the diamond industry that in my opinion in invaluable. As anyone that is reading this can see I only have nice things to say about my experience working with Todd as well.
As I mentioned in my previous paragraph my experience truly started with Todd and his diamond concierge service. I told him that I wanted a 2 carat, ideal cut diamond preferably H/I color round brilliant cut diamond. I sent him my initial choices and he told me based off of his criteria what he thought the best stone was. I read and digested all of the information that he told me but it still didn't feel right. Just based off of personal preference the huge online vendors don't really appeal to me because I don't think they really make it an individualized experience and that was really important to me so we moved on to another round of diamonds. I looked at Brian Gavin's signature diamonds and have to say that all of their inventory was very impressive but they didn't have anything that really fit with what I wanted. In addition, I looked at Whiteflash's A Cut Above line and actually found a couple choices that I sent to Todd. In addition, to the choices from Whiteflash, I sent one diamond that really caught my eye when Todd suggested I check out High Performance Diamonds as well. Todd once again took the time to look through all of the choices and in the end recommended the Cafted by Infinity diamond and this is where my experience really took off.
I was introduced to Wink on the 6th of February and I have to say dealing with him and high performance diamonds has been an absolute dream come true. I mean all anyone has to do is search his name or high performance diamonds on this forum and you will see he has an absolutely pristine reputation as not only being a great guy but also another invaluable source of information when it comes to purchasing the perfect diamond. Like I said in my last paragraph I think the diamonds from Brian Gavin, Whiteflash, etc are amazing but when it comes to the most perfect, ideal cut diamond I think it is hard to beat a Crafted by Infinity diamond. During my many conversations with Wink we talked about how Mr. Paul Slegers personally oversees the cutting of only 1,000 diamonds per year. Just stop and think about that. Most of the huge diamond cutting houses in America can cut around 10,000 diamonds per MONTH. This really was one of the most important factors that I thought about during the process because when you buy a Crafted by Infinity diamond you know exactly what you are going to get because Mr. Slegers personally oversees the cutting of every diamond that carries the Crafted by Infinity brand. And let me just say after receiving my diamond in the mail it is unlike anything I have ever seen. I mean I looked at it so long that I basically gave myself a migraine. I mean I just couldn't stop. During the process Wink was there for me whenever I emailed or called no matter what time it was. You will be hard pressed to find any online vendor that has the customer support or truly cares about the customer and his experience as much as Wink does. If you take the time to watch some of the youtube videos that he has created you will see that he is very open about wanting to sell the absolute, most perfect diamonds and not simply the cheapest diamonds. Once again depending on your personality you might say, "I want to find the absolute cheapest diamond and this isn't for me" but that definitely wasn't the case with me.
Now a little about the diamond that I ended up choosing. I ended up going with a 2.12 I VS2 Crafted by Infinity diamond and I couldn't be happier with my choice. When I received the diamond I could not believe the amount of brilliance and fire that it exhibited. It honestly is unlike anything I have ever seen in a jewelry store. Wink took the time to make a great video to send me during the process and although it still looks phenomenal in the initial video it looks 100x better in person. I have attached the video below. I am excited to hear what people think.
http://highperformancediamonds.com/index.php?page=view-id-diamond-infinity-new&id=1364
http://handshake2.jivesystems.com/videos/adnm4jtozw?tag=90543
In addition, I have attached the platinum setting that I am currently having made through Tacori.
http://www.tacori.com/engagement/ht254725rd9.html
In closing, I want to just say one more time how happy I am with my complete experience with Wink. Not only does he sell the best diamonds in Crafted by Infinity (in my personal opinion) but he will also go out of his way to make your diamond buying experience as stress free as possible. One thing that will always stick out to me is that he doesn't treat you simply like a number, but rather he treats you like an actual person. This is very rare when making any online purchase, much less a diamond. Once again if you want to purchase a diamond that will turn heads when you fiancee walks across the room go with a Crafted by Infinity diamond and let Wink help you out. I know that after my experience he definitely has a customer for life.