An Engagement

Last year I was asked to do a very special project for a childhood friend. To celebrate her engagement, her family had gifted her an old ring with a magnificent diamond and she needed someone to help her make it her own.

The old ring was platinum but not really to her taste. In fact, the bezel was hiding a lot of the fantastic E-color 1.5 carat diamond, and she was after some more sparkle but really didn’t know what she wanted at first. We talked for a while about her personal style and what caught her interest when shopping for jewelry, as well as her lifestyle and how she wanted to wear it. It eventually became clear that while she wanted something that would hold up to her active lifestyle without her having to take it off very often (who wants to remove their new engagement ring for every little thing?), she was most drawn to the delicate current styles that would really show off her stone and give it plenty of light.

We went through several 3D modeled mockups to refine this idea and bring her vision into focus until we settled on something with lots of sparkle, sturdily built to protect her gifted diamond from loss or damage but hiding that extra muscle where it wouldn’t be seen from the top to get that dainty look she preferred. For some vintage style glamour we went with tapered baguettes for the accents, and the cool tone of platinum just didn’t suit her, so we went with an extra-yellow 18K gold alloy offered by my favorite casting house in the diamond district.

I was very sweetly given permission to publish this post immediately when I delivered the ring last summer, but it just didn’t feel right before everyone else had seen it! We celebrated her wedding last weekend in upstate New York and everything was so fabulous that I feel even more honored to have been able to participate in such a special way.

This was my first time doing such a deeply personal custom project and though I was quite intimidated, it was great fun and a very rewarding challenge. I can’t wait to do it again!