Weddingbee Blog

When we started discussing the possibility of getting married, I jumped right into ring browsing. I couldn’t help myself. And like basically all women, I fell hard for this ring:

(source)

I ogled it for a good week until realizing the price of such a rock. It seemed diamonds were pricey — how strange!

So one day when I was flipping through an older issue of Vogue, I came across a wedding spread. And in that wedding spread was the most glorious ring I had ever seen.

(source)

It was by Jack Vartanian, who is apparently quite the fancy jewelry designer, and also completely more than I was comfortable having Ribsy spend. Yet, the aquamarine seed was planted.

I loved the idea of an aqua. It’s a charming little gemstone that happens to look great with bitty diamonds. You can get 4+ carats for the price of a .25 carat high quality diamond. Yeah I went there!

It’s been 1.5 years since we did this research and shopping so I don’t remember every detail and ring I looked at. So instead, I’ll share my sources!

(source)

Fay Cullen

Fay Cullen has an enormous amount of estate jewelry, especially aquamarines.

YLANG|23

Ylang 23 carries a ton of new designer jewelry, with a nice selection of gemstone rings. Unfortunately they were mostly out of our price range, but it’s definitely worth a look!

Beladora

Not much suspense, but this is where the Ribsters eventually bought my ring. Oh yes, we bought my engagement ring off the internet. We’re those people.

The service was ridiculously good. They didn’t have exactly what I was looking for featured on the site, so be sure to always ask internet retailers questions! They generally have a lot more stock than what is featured. We were emailed a few estate rings and also pictures of loose aquas, in case we wanted to design something. But there was no need, because I had already picked out my ring.

So he proposed, yay, and I got my darling aqua.

Fast forward a month: ring tragedy struck. About a month after I moved to DC, I was loading something into the trunk of our car and somehow smashed my ring. A prong bent and the stone fell out.

Word. The stone fell out. I eventually found the stone (hooray) but the ring looked truly mangled. We called Beladora, explained the situation, and they fixed the ring for free. Yay. I highly recommend them, if you do go the estate route!

Did you choose a non-diamond engagement ring? What were your reasons?