Searching for the perfect ring that is unique and suited to your individuality can be challenging. Why settle for a mass-produced design when you can create one-of-a-kind customized wedding and engagement rings.
Many couples nowadays use their creativity and ingenuity to come up with design ideas for their rings. For women, the engagement and wedding ring share a common design theme and are often sold as sets with a diamond solitaire-styled engagement ring and wedding bands that are worn along with with engagement ring. For men, the choices are slowly expanding to include diamond and other semi-precious stones for those men who like a little bling!
Designing a ring is a lot easier than you imagined. While sketching or drawing a design certainly helps, you could also talk to your jeweller and use their expertise to come up with a design that is personal and customised. Be warned though that customised jewellery design will cost a tad more than store-bought jewellery.
Don’t know where to start? Here’s how…
Research designs
Visit jewellery stores and look at designs in store for inspiration.
Research ring designs online and save images if you see something you like, even if it’s a minor detail.
Create a list of what you’d like your ring to look like.
Select your Band
Start out by selecting the kind of metal you’d like for your rings. Your choices include:
Yellow Gold; or
White Gold; or
Platinum.
Choosing a metal depends entirely on how compatible the metal is with your skin, how it looks on your fingers, how it is affected by water and other agents that may cause it to scratch or lose its sheen.
Pick the shape of your centre stone
Diamonds come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Start out by understanding which shapes appeal to you.
Your choices include:
- Round
- Marquise
- Teardrop (Pear)
- Emerald
- Oval
- Princess
- Radiant
- Heart
- Cushion
- Asscher
Choose the side stones
After you select your centre stone, decide if you want to pick side stones that sit alongside the main diamond on your ring. Again, you have a range of shapes to choose from, as follows:
- Round
- Marquise
- Teardrop
- Emerald
- Oval
- Princess
- Radiant
- Heart
- Baguette
- Trillion
Design or pattern on your ring
Do you want to see some detail or carvings on the ring? Maybe a shape or pattern seems interesting and would work well with your stone setting.
- Ask your jeweller for suggestions and see if you’d like to incorporate a design element into your ring.
- Sometimes, couples choose to go with a design or pattern embedded in the ring instead of more expensive diamond or semi-precious stones.
Engrave it
There’s no better way to personalise your rings than to engrave them with initials or a small message to each other. This can be taken care of by your jewellery and the script you choose will depend on your personal preference. Most commonly used is a simple running handwriting that is classic and everlasting.
The 4 C’s
Clarity refers to the purity of the diamond.
Cut refers to the symmetry, finishing and how weType text herell the diamond has been cut or shaped.
Color refers to the colour of the diamond. The fancier the colour, the more expensive the diamond will be because it’s that much more rare to find.
Carat is the unit in which diamonds are measured. Each carat is subdivided into 100 points. Often carat size determines the price because bigger diamonds occur more infrequently in nature and therefore command a heftier price tag.
To learn more about diamonds and the 4C’s, watch a video from the Gemological Institute of America.
