Thank you so much for all your help! She cried, loved the ring, and most important of all, said YES. Before Pricescope I was totally lost, but after a LOT of lurking ended up with a beautiful AGS0 diamond and setting.
Congratulations on your engagement!! I can see why she loves the ring, it''s beautiful. The setting is so unique and one that I haven''t seen before. I love it too!
At first I was a little worried about the size. That whole stigma of having to buy at least a whole carat... once it was mounted though I felt a little bit better, and once I saw her face all those worries for gone. It sparkles like mad and as Stone Hunter mentioned, the way the ring narrows really makes the center cluster pop.
The setting came from a maul store. I know nearly this whole board is opposed to the idea of buying from those sharks, but I had a really good experience. While lurking the boards of Pricescope and in the early stages of finding the diamond, I popped into a Jared store and sat down with one of their sales women.
I was up front with her and told her that I would most definitely be buying the stone online. She understood, tried to sell the warranty idea, and when that failed was nice enough to indulge me for an hour and a half with all sorts stones. I mean she pulled out everything. We looked at IGI stones, AGS0, modified rounds (their Leo cut), big stones, small stones... talked about florescense, what''s eye clean, fire, scintillation...we talked about almost everything. When she didn''t know something, she pulled out her "workbook" and we looked it over together. I left feeling pretty good about everything and several weeks later bought the center stone from James Allen. Soon after I came back to Jared and bought the setting!
All I know about the setting is: It''s 14k white gold, plat 6 prong head, and the melee stones couldn''t be hand picked. That''s about it. Sorry if that''s too generic a response.
I''ll post more side pictures tonight when I get home.
Again, thanks everyone for such a great resource. I really appreciated your present and past discussions on this board. It was of immense help!
Now...to post some more pictures tonight.... and find a wedding band....