If you had said wedding rings and styling in the same breath, the previous generations would have laughed. A wedding ring for them was functional and what style was there in a band of gold? And the world keeps turning round and suddenly, wedding rings enter the world of fashion and there are so many to choose from. Just metal rings mean a choice of so many metals and so many designs – so much so that it’s a hard thing to see so many and choose.

The wedding ring now sports diamonds and other stones too. Time was when diamond rings were mainly a feminine ornament but now, men are experimenting with not just one diamond embedded in the wedding band but intricately designed male rings with diamonds. Have we come a long way or are we just going back in time? A couple of centuries ago, rings on fingers were ornate affairs for both men and women. Are the wedding rings of today going back to this trend? Whatever it is, the whole wedding ring selection process has gotten more interesting and involving. Not just for women but also for men who are now competing with women when it comes to the style quotient.

It is also interesting that although the jewelry market as a whole is primarily a female-orientated market, wedding rings are leading the way for a more gender-equal market.  With new metals such as titanium and tungsten, men are more and more interesting in styling their own rings.  A common addition to a wedding ring now is the inclusion of single black diamond which, while not as intricate as some other designs is nonetheless more complex than the traditional single band.

It is not just men who are benefiting from the influx of new designs for wedding rings.  Women are choosing increasingly stunning and unique designs, with the range of new options availiable the ability for metal workers to cast a wide variety of shapes.  There is also a growing number of setting options such as channel or grain settings to enable a flush setting.

Traditional engagement rings were supposed to have a huge diamond and a slim yellow gold band. Today, while a huge diamond is something everyone would love to have, they are looking at wider bands. People probably thought that a narrow band would show off the diamond better but that does not seem to hold water with the designers today. In fact, younger couples seem to feel that the wider the better where the band is concerned. There’s a lot more confidence among women today and let’s face it – many of them work and in high powered jobs too – so why not make a bold statement of confidence to the world with a broad band?

Wider bands make engagement rings look modern and give it a look of stability. It’s today’s woman’s look and it’s something that suits her. After all, a woman has come a long way in the last few decades. From a shy, retiring behind-the-scenes person, she has come into her own, centre-stage very often and loving it. She makes decisions, she supports her family very often and she might just be in that corner office at work. So why can’t she have a wider band on her engagement ring if she wants to?

Furthermore, certain wider bands will look great on longer wider fingers.  A 6mm band for example will look disproportioned on skinny fingers, whereas a 6mm on slightly larger fingers will look excellent.  It is useful to rememeber that it is not only finger thickness that should influence the width of your ring, it is more a proportion between length and width of your finger.

The most important thing though when considering band width is personal preference, if you have skinny fingers but you love how it you look wearing a wider band, then get a wider band.  As with any choice in jewelry as long as you love what it looks like then get it.  We do recommend you consider different band sizes if you have not already as they can really affect the apperance of the ring, and you may find a design looks great in a wider band.

Fancy wearing half a ring to show the world you are engaged? The great thing about this is that the wedding ring that comes with it as a set completes the ring – together, they look like one and apart, they look incomplete – like two halves. The emotion behind this is great – it links the engagement and wedding events and makes them one. Like love and marriage, the engagement ring and the wedding ring go together so well too.

However, an engagement ring like this means you have to wear both all the time. You can’t think of separating them – you may at times only want to wear your wedding ring and then it might look a bit odd. There are times when the diamonds in the engagement ring might be at risk – if you are doing chores at home or using certain tools. To keep it safe, you would rather remove your engagement ring for a bit. The look however, is great so many couples like this set of rings. It does look good when worn and it also has a kind of message to tell the world – about how both the engagement and the wedding mean so much to the couple.

Furthermore, many manufacturers are now creating sets, that is engagement rings and weddings bands that are specifically made to be worn together.  Usually the band sits flush with the engagement ring and together they can look excellent together.  However, if you do decide to go down this route please make sure the two metal types used look good together.  This does not necessarily mean they have to be the exact same type, a platinum band mixed with gold can look great, but more often than not, they clash.

Even if the two pieces when viewed individually look great, when placed together may detrimentally affect not only the overall look of the rings, but also their individual look.  A ring you love individually may look decidedly unimpressive in a set.  So make sure they suit and you will increase the ring’s beauty, rather than ruin it.

There is a wealth of information about the 4 C’s of diamonds (cut, clarity, colour, carat respectively), but rarely are they evaluated in terms of which one should be focused on to achieve the best apperance.  There a number of reasons for this, one is that because all of these factors influence a diamond’s apperance there has to be a reasonable degree of each in order to make a desirable diamond.  However, when it comes to buying rings clarity and cut need to be explained and the trade-offs weighed up in order to help you decide whether to focus on one, or strike a balance.

Firstly, clarity, the measure of internal imperfections within a diamond.  This is ranked from Internally Flawless to Included.  While an Included diamond will not look good there is definitely an oppurtunity to trade-off a IF rating for a better cut.  A rank of VVS, VS, or SI will still look largely flawless to the naked eye and will not detrementally affect the apperance of the diamond too drastically.  A VS1 diamond will not appear to the naked eye to be included and the diamond will still appear to sparkle brilliantly.

Diamond cut, on the other hand, cannot be down graded so easily.  There will be notable visible difference between a good cut and an excellent cut diamond.  We also believe that cut is the most important C, and if you have to lower another C to allow a higher cut grade, then we recommend you do so.  An excellent or ideal cut diamond will sparkle more, and will appear to have greater fire and brilliance.  This is especially the case with an excellent hearts and arrows diamond.

It’s a very difficuilt question to answer and furthermore it depends on so many factors that it is difficuilt to give an answer, nevertheless, in our experience it is one of the most common question or worries that a potentional groom, or bride will ask us.

There is a common belief, thanks to a De Beers marketing campaign, that two months salary is the perfect amount to spend.  This is not always the case however, you may not have two months salary to spend, moreover, because two people’s salaries can vary so much in size it is illogical to say that 2,000 is enough for someone else, while 20,000 is acceptable for another person.  It is also important to bear in mind that price and carat is not everything when looking for a diamond, and should definitely not be your complete influence when buying.

We have had experiences in the past where a £25,000 diamond was comparable to a £2,000.  The £25,000 diamond was IF, E colour, and excellent cut at 1.25 carat.  Whereas the £2,000 diamond was VS2, G colour, and excellent hearts and arrows cut, but was a 0.7 carat diamond.  To the naked eye it was near impossible to see a visual difference, apart from size, in terms of scintillation, fire and brilliance.  The £25,000 diamond did sparkle more, but only slightly, and the £2,000 diamond was still an incredible stone.

Our general rule is to set yourself an upper budget limit, the most you would be prepared to spend, which should be based on monthly income and expenditure.  There is no shame in buying a cheaper diamond as you can trade off clarity to get a good cut, as even SI1 is to the naked eye essentially indistiguishable to an IF.  Whereas there is a huge visual difference between an excellent cut and a good cut. So you can afford to comprimise in order to get the best

Do you tend to take your engagement ring for granted after a while? Remember the day you first got it? You couldn’t take your eyes off it and you felt that you would take good care of it and pamper it for the rest of your life. Sometimes, however, we forget and in the process, there’s one sad diamond ring that does not shine the way it was meant to. That engagement ring stands for the moment when you decided to trust your life to another – when you felt a wave of love inside you that said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with this person in front of you.

Life changes and things become routine and boring. No one can change a thing except you and you can do it by looking at your engagement ring and bringing back those first wonderful moments. Once you’ve done that, get your engagement ring shining brilliantly first and then put the shine back into your relationship. You can do it if you try. Like your ring, you might have to dust off a few cobwebs and get to work getting rid of the years of stagnation – but you can let the wonder of it all back in if you put your mind to it.

There are many methods in order to do this and all will work, but the  method we would always recommend would be ultrasonic cleaning.  An ultrasonic cleaner creates bubbles, due to a process known as cavitation, which collapse releasing relatively huge amounts of pressure and heat.  Despite the relative size of the forces involved, due to the small size of the bubbles it is perfectly safe and  indeed an incredibly effective way to clean jewelry.

It is important to note, however, that some gemstones should never be cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner.  Firstly, any stone with an oil finish such as emerald, onyx or pearl should never be used in an ultrasonic cleaner as you will wash the finish away and either break the gem or instead of cleaning your stone you will ruin it.  Furthermore, porous stones, or those with high water contents such as opal or bloodstones as you will essentially shatter the stone from the inside.