A little diamond on the side please....

I consider myself a classical person, but I didn’t know that my tastes had changed into vintage or unique in jewelry.  For eight years, I wore the elegant, simple diamond solitaire and plain wedding band.  We got divorced in 2008, and out went the rings.

When I got engaged again recently, I tried the solitaire diamond, but it didn’t look right.  There was nothing wrong with the stone or the setting.  Cosmetically, it was beautiful and had all the elements of a good ring.  But it looked very ordinary and I didn’t get that flutter in my heart looking at it.  I tried a three stone diamond ring to beef up the effect, and it turned gaudy.  Lastly, we attempted a diamond with sapphire accents.  It still looked gaudy and boring, but the sapphires added some color.  I didn’t want any of them, and the prices were outrageous.

After all this, I had to face reality: diamonds were not my best friend anymore.   I grew out of them as a big focal stone as my marriage failed, and they didn’t have the same sparkle for me anymore.  I had to find my own direction, and that meant expressing who I was now, not eight years ago.

I postulated a new approach based on my love of gemstones.  I like almost all of them, but one has always been my first love: sapphire.  They match my eyes and look great with my light skin.  People always notice rings on my hand when they have some vivid, deep color.  My eyes love looking at sapphire.

I suddenly envisioned a ring with a sapphire in the center.  Then my eyes lit up and my heart fluttered.  A cursory search of Amazon and Zales yielded numerous brilliant results.  However, my flurry of excitement was interrupted by the price.  Natural sapphire and diamond rings were over $7,900.   I was not comfortable wearing a ring that was worth more than $1,000.

My dream still alive, I remembered lab created gemstones.  These beauties are grown from the seeds of natural sapphires and have identical chemical, optical and hardness compared to natural stones.  They have no collector’s value and can be easily replaced if stolen.  And the colors are endless, so I could get exactly the hue I wanted.  The average sapphire/faux diamond ring in gold was under $1,000.

Some stores weren’t inclined to help me with my sapphire vision.  Or they brought out a diamond with little accents. The better mannered salespeople showed me gemstones, but discouraged the lab-created stones.  My argument that I cared more about the right color than where it came from was lost.

At a local Zales, I finally found two lab-created candidates, each of a different style.  The first was a cushion cut 2 carat sapphire with white sapphire chips going down the sides.  The second candidate was a three stone ring with a 2.5 carat oval sapphire and half-moon cut white sapphire accents.  The price difference was about $200, but both were under $600.  It was music to my worried ears.

I loved both, but ring number two won.  The cushion cut was certainly substantial enough to be an engagement ring and the side stones made it look very luxurious.  But the style was a notch too modern for me.  The sapphire was square cut, which didn’t look good on my longer ring finger.  The side stones going down the band took away from the sapphire.  Overall, it looked like every other cushion cut diamond ring out there, with a sapphire in the middle.  The nail in the coffin was the band, which was sterling silver.  With a setting that ornate, a new band in 14K gold would be an added expense.

The second ring was sapphire brilliance in a 10K white gold classic setting.  The three stone was a step above the generic looking simple solitaire, without gaudy halos and stones going down the band. It was balanced and elegant, reminding me of rings from the 1800’s (where gemstones were used exclusively in jewelry.)

The look was perfected with decorative crown-like inserts between the prongs on the front and back side, obscuring the bottom view of the stones.  From the side, it had a beautiful triple step up effect from the white gold to the blue crown jewel.

In keeping with my unique/off the beaten path theme, I picked up a genuine diamond ½ eternity band in 14K WG for $65 at a local gold exchange.  It was pre-owned (which was fine with me because the ring had a history) and they were going to take it apart for melting.  It fit me perfectly and complimented my sapphire creation beautifully.  The diamonds in the band only total about ¼ carat with the bottom half as a solid 14K band.  The diamonds are not a focal point.

I’ve gotten the occasional strange look from people (mostly women) who do their best not to offend me.  But I can see the disapproval in their eyes.  I’ve also been judged by jewelers when I wanted to get a wedding ring (before I found the eternity band).  They were enthusiastic until I showed them the ring.  All I can say is that DeBeers has done a fine job of brainwashing people into believing that only a diamond can be beautiful for an engagement ring.

Diamonds are very pretty, but not made for all women.  I didn’t realize how unflattering they were the first time because I was a naive first time bride who never had bling before.  Now that I’ve seen it, all that sparkle seems boring and colorless.  My skin tone is too light for a solo diamond act.  Color makes my skin tone look vibrant.  More importantly, I became a more colorful person after the divorce, and it is a better version of me.  I like to think the blue in my ring and the little pop of diamond is an extension of my personal desire to remain colorful, yet strong in this new life we are entering together.