After years of explaining to clients the benefits of purchasing an eternity band and also weighing the cost associated with adding all those diamonds, I decided that for myself, I wanted an eternity band. It's a great option because you will always have diamonds showing.

Your wedding band will naturally spin on your finger. As you wear your engagement ring during all that wedding planning and showing it off to your friends you may tell yourself, this never spins around so why would my wedding band? I want you to think of why your engagement ring doesn’t spin. First of all, why would you let it spin around? You always want everyone to see that sparkler! And with that rock on the top, once it turns about a quarter of the way in either direction your other fingers will actually prevent it from turning to the bottom. So why would you let your wedding band go in hiding??



There are plenty of options for how many diamonds you could have around your ring. Most designers will accommodate your preference of diamonds half way around, three quarters or even 90% of the way around. The benefit of going partial is that you can have your ring resized in the future. There are some designers that offer a great exchange program for your eternity band so you can trade your old size for the new one for a reasonable fee. Some others are not as accommodating. You will want to ask your salesperson what future options you may have. I have had quite a few clients who were stuck on a tight budget and went with the half way option and upgraded to eternity for a future anniversary.

This is a purchase that you should really think long and hard about. This is your ONLY wedding band, so ask yourself while planning that budget… Are those flowers going to last forever? Is that upgraded cake really worth it? Should you buy those super expensive invites, programs, place cards and thank you cards that in the long run get thrown away? Your wedding band is FOREVER. Rethink that wedding band budget and ask yourself – will spending that extra money on a quality wedding band that you love be worth it 50 years from now? How do you want your wedding day to be remembered? Looking down at that ring every day after you are married will be the best reminder of why you got married in the first place. Make your wedding band something that you love just as much as the memory of the day you walked down the aisle.

We're excited to share that David Cooper himself will be joining us for a Jeff Cooper trunk show. Jeff Cooper engagement rings and wedding rings are loved for their "refined simplicity." They believe in classic designs that you'll love today and for many years to come. They'll never go out of style.

 

Those buying diamond engagement rings for the first time can feel a bit intimidated. There are a lot of things to consider beyond just your budget. Every diamond is unique, as is the person purchasing it and the person who will be wearing it.

My husband purchased my diamond engagement ring about 15 years ago. He did it secretly all on his own and bought the most brilliant and romantic diamond that, in my eyes, is something Wonder Woman could have used as a secret weapon to temporarily blind her opponents.

A few years later, we had to have the ring appraised to renew the insurance policy. My husband pulled out this certificate (who knew diamond engagement rings came with certificates?) and he told me how nervous he was back then to venture out and make this big purchase all on his own. It was his first foray into what he thought would be an intimidating diamond purchasing adventure. He went to the Mervis location in downtown DC and said he had to walk through a special doorway and worried briefly that he wouldn’t pass muster to go further. But they welcomed him in, sat him down and put him at ease by giving him a little intro on what to look for in a diamond.

The 4Cs -- Cut, Color, Clarity and Carat Weight

CUT:

The cut is the most important of the 4Cs. The cut of the diamond affects how much light it refracts and reflects. A meticulously cut and polished diamond will manipulate the light to make for the utmost beauty and brilliance, as light reflects from facet to facet and pours out of the top (or “table”). A poorly cut diamond, on the other hand, will be less brilliant as light spills out of the bottom and sides. The cut goes way beyond the shape alone -- oval, princess, round brilliant, emerald, etc. The cut is the only factor of the 4Cs that is not dictated by nature, so it is important that you seek a diamond that was cut by the hands of a master craftsman. Gemological Institute of America (GIA) assigns grades to the cut: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.

 


 

COLOR:

“Aren’t all diamond engagement rings the same color?” you ask. No, they aren’t. The ideal diamonds are colorless, like water. They are the most expensive, because they are the rarest. The color of diamonds range from colorless to yellow, and each diamond is assigned a color rating from D (colorless) to Z (yellow). But remember that the 4Cs work together. Just because a diamond is not completely colorless on the scale, it does not necessarily mean it can’t be beautiful. Again, a meticulously cut diamond can make all the difference in the world.

Another factor in grading the color is fluorescence, or the emission of visible light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. On a diamond certificate, you will see fluorescence exhibited as none, faint, medium, strong, and very strong. Flourescence can have a positive or negative effect on the beauty of a diamond, depending on where the diamond is on the color scale I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

 

CLARITY:
Most diamonds have tiny imperfections or “inclusions.” The fewer and less detectable those imperfections, the more valuable (and rare) the diamond. Like the previous Cs, there is a grading scale for clarity, ranging from internally flawless to imperfect:

IF - Internally flawless
VVS1, VVS2 - very, very small inclusions, category 1 and 2
VS1, VS2 - very small inclusions, category 1 and 2
SI1, SI2, SI3 - slightly included, category 1, 2, and 3

 

CARAT WEIGHT:
This seems to be the factor most people emphasize and remember when they talk about diamond engagement rings. “How many carats?” Carat weight is indicated by points, with each carat being 100 points. If a diamond is 150 points, it weighs 1.5 carats. But don’t go by weight alone. As you just learned, there are many factors that affect the beauty of a diamond and it is about so much more than just the number of carats. The 4Cs will help you determine the diamond that sings to you.