How to design an engagement ring
One of the hardest things when you’re planning to propose is the ring!
When I first started planning to propose I knew the ring was going to be very important; my wife Jaymee doesn’t tend to wear jewellery, but she had talked about an engagement ring/wedding ring being the only jewellery she would wear, so I wanted it to reflect her style and remind her of our relationship.
I did a lot of research into rings, diamonds etc and whether to buy one off the shelf, or get one designed. I ended up getting one designed and made by The Village Goldsmiths, who were incredible through the whole process! Here are a few of the things I learned during that process.
Why did I go for custom made?
In most cases it’s not more expensive to design your own engagement ring. Since you’re starting from scratch you can set your budget and you’ll know exactly what you can get for the cost. It also meant I could create something really specific that would represent Jaymee and I, and have control over all of the elements.
Speaking of cost
There’s an old rule that you should spend three months salary on the ring, don’t buy into that and definitely don’t go into debt for it. You don’t even need to buy a ring if your partner isn’t into that. My best friend Dave’s partner got a tattoo to symbolise their engagement. No matter what you get only spend whatever you’re comfortable with - the cost was the first thing I decided on.
Research
First figure out what kind of jewellery your partner likes. Jaymee literally only owned one ring at the time and she never wore it. Luckily she did have a Pinterest board with wedding rings she liked (talk about a hint). I noticed that most of them used rose gold, all but one had diamonds, and the diamonds were mostly round or pear shape.
Design
For me the overall design of the ring was the fun part. I really liked the idea of incorporating the infinity symbol in it (so cheesy) and just created a few different design options. I sent those through to the designer and she came back with some similar rings they had done in the past, for inspiration. One of them had one larger diamond, and a smaller diamond to each side of that, which I thought looked great so we expanded on that idea.
As it happens, this design was actually very similar to both our grandmothers engagement rings, which was a nice surprise after the fact!
The other main design element was the metal colour. I knew rose gold needed to be the main metal, but one of the design ideas was two-tone, with white gold in addition to the rose gold. I liked this idea but eventually decided that the full rose gold is what Jaymee would prefer, and had a more classic look.
Diamonds (or other jewels)
A girls best friend. Also quite expensive! This actually takes up most of the cost of the ring, so your goldsmith can change the size and quality to match your budget. There are lots of other options if you can’t afford the size that you’re wanting. While researching I came across Moissanite which I was originally going to go for, however, you would need to find a specific jeweller that works with this as not all of them do. There are also white sapphires, which Village Goldsmith recommended if I wanted something larger for my budget.
You don’t have to go for the standard, a different coloured jewel could really make your ring stand out, if that’s what you and your partner like. I knew Jaymee liked diamonds since it was all over her Pinterest board, so I went with that. I think she might be addicted to them now though!
Designing our wedding bands
We wanted our wedding rings to fit in with the engagement ring, especially Jaymee’s, since it would sit right next to it. For her wedding band, we stuck with rose gold, but wanted something a bit more delicate and understated, since the engagement ring was the main piece. We love the band of small diamonds, as it makes the diamonds on the engagement ring look bigger!
For my wedding band, I needed something durable since I do a lot of heavy work so I went for titanium. To keep it within the look, we had a band of rose gold through the middle of the ring in to match Jaymees’ rings.