I just wanted to say thank you to this forum, which has been an amazing resource. After reading as much as possible over a few months and visiting numerous jewelers in NYC to examine stones and settings; I decided to go with a custom design from Victor Canera using one of his in-house diamonds (1.24 round, canera branded ideal hearts, g, si1, .31ct sidestones, platinum setting).
Basically, this amounted to faith in this forum, and after speaking with Victor, I went with my gut, and I am thrilled with the result! My gf had expressed several preferences: open profile, round, no halo, pave, platinum- but otherwise I was on my own. Which made it both easy and hard, as there were very few designs that matched these criteria floating around.
After learning about stones and settings here, and then examining many in person, I was set on getting the highest quality cut that was within my budget (~15k). But one thing that set in was basically information paralysis--I chose Victor based on his reputation, and him having stones in house, saving me time and energy. After sending a few photos along with a quote request, then a phone conversation, Victor suggested a modification to his Evelyn that he had thought of trying, which would give it an open profile. I actually felt much more comfortable letting him drive the design, and less than three weeks later, this is the result (photos are with my cell phone and don't really do the ring justice):
Basically, this amounted to faith in this forum, and after speaking with Victor, I went with my gut, and I am thrilled with the result! My gf had expressed several preferences: open profile, round, no halo, pave, platinum- but otherwise I was on my own. Which made it both easy and hard, as there were very few designs that matched these criteria floating around.
After learning about stones and settings here, and then examining many in person, I was set on getting the highest quality cut that was within my budget (~15k). But one thing that set in was basically information paralysis--I chose Victor based on his reputation, and him having stones in house, saving me time and energy. After sending a few photos along with a quote request, then a phone conversation, Victor suggested a modification to his Evelyn that he had thought of trying, which would give it an open profile. I actually felt much more comfortable letting him drive the design, and less than three weeks later, this is the result (photos are with my cell phone and don't really do the ring justice):
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