It has to be said, I am a Diamond afficionado. 
In my years of hoping Pete would finally pop the question, I always made clear I wanted to do the choosing. A bestowed ring was not for me, I wanted the choice, the experience and the perfect diamond. So he had it nailed when he booked us into Boodles, my favourite jewellers of all time.
I thought I knew what I wanted, which is exactly why I think everyone should be able to go and try everything. I thought an Oval diamond, but in the end it was the Emerald cut that spoke to me time and time again. The prism like clarity of the cut with the blend of vintage yet modern ‘look’ about them drew me in again and again. I ended up narrowing it down to 2. An Oval with tiny diamonds on the shoulders which would have had to be made for me to fit our budget, or a horizontally set emerald cut with rub over set ends… part of the Superstar range (below right).
After walking all over Manchester and trying rings on in every different shop there was, I walked out that evening having chosen the Superstar ring with a big smile on my face and a courier bringing it the next morning, after it had been resized.
It was on approval, and I can’t fault the Boodles service but as that week wore on, I couldn’t help but feel something wasn’t right. My Mum didn’t gape at it, and I realised I wasn’t in love with the ring itself, but the Boodles name, which made it a bl*ody expensive ring to not be in love with. Come the following Friday and I burst into tears getting ready one evening to go to bed, and confessed to Pete that I wasn’t happy with it.
You see, dispite my desperation for Pete to propose sooner, after graduating, Pete had set up a savings account and put a certain amount aside per month to save for my perfect ring. I knew he had been broke many a time in that period, and yet for 2 whole years he had been thinking about this ring and making it perfect for me. That meant a huge amount to me and I was damned if I was going to let him spend his hard earned cash on an over priced ring that I didn’t really 100% fall for. It represented everything I loved about him and us, and the beginning of our life together so I was desperate to make sure it was right. The Boodles ring was returned and we never went back.
I spent the next 3 weeks searching high and low for the right ring and we made many a late night trip (it was conveniently December and christmas shopping hours were in full swing,) to check out a new discovery I had made, until someone recommended the Jewellery Quarter in birmingham to me. The northern version of Hatton Garden, it is an area where the streets are lined with jewellers who supply a great deal of the UK’s diamonds to the bigger chains and often even create the jewellery before it is sold under other names. Given that the middle man was cut out the prices were massively cheaper than the Big Brands. We booked a hotel for the night, drove down one Friday and spent Saturday once again scouring the stores for an Oval diamond.
And there it was, in Marlows I fell again, hard, for an Emerald cut solitaire… D in colour, (the whitest Diamond possible) a perfect prism of flashing light instead of the sparkle you get with a brilliant cut; We both saw it, leaned in and breathed ‘wow’ at the same precise moment and the deal was done. 
Marlows then fused my diamond with a half eternity ring, to get the perfect ring, unique to me and the perfect way to signal to the world that I was his, forever.
*Suffice to say, my ring could almost be described as a bargain (although I’m not sure Pete would agree , ) In comparison to the Boodles ring, he paid less than 20% more and got a diamond of higher quality and almost double the size.
