Sick of running from one mall jewelry store to another and still didn’t find a ring for your special day? All rings look like each other? Sorry, it’s a totally common thing. Mass market jewelry is designed for an average buyer. And for your special occasion you need a special kind of jewelry. The solution to this could be a custom ring.
In this article we describe 7 the most compelling reasons to consider a custom ring for your engagement. From our experience, it is a much better option than premade jewelry. Especially if there is no price difference.
You’ll have the unique symbol of your love
Your wedding day will be a special event in your life, your partner is a special person to you, why then an engagement ring may be a mass-produced one? I might be talking about a pretty obvious thing, but it’s still underestimated when we think about engagement rings. It’s not just a ring, it’s the symbol of your love and trust.
A mall store engagement ring will never reflect your personality and of your husband-to-be. Jewelry manufacturers are guided by current trends in design & fashion, and the tastes of average buyers. For mall jewelry stores, it does not matter that you are not excited about one or the other trend. You are literally obliged to buy what is offered. Someone has already decided for you what you are going to buy.
Another thing is a custom-designed ring. Think about what your beloved means to you. Think about what inspires you in your relationship. Think about the story of your love and imagine how it may be reflected in gems and design. All these unique ideas will never be associated with the mass production of jewelry manufacturers. Independent jewelers do not sell just rings — we create symbols of fidelity a couple shares and put into a ring the story of their journey together.
This ring is a perfect example of an unusual custom ring of the Victorian era. In Victorian times people liked to encrypt words in jewelry. In this amazing Victorian engagement ring, the word “Regard” is “spelled” by using a (R) ruby, (E) emerald, (G) garnet, (A) amethyst, (R) ruby, and (D) diamond. Acrostic jewelry was meant to send private messages known only to one’s beloved. We can repeat for you this idea in your personally designed ring.
Going with a custom made engagement ring you will never meet a girl with the same ring as yours. It’s very simple: there is no love story like yours. And your ring will never be like the others.
You’ll get an heirloom engagement ring
Every custom engagement ring has its own story. You will find the provenance of your designed ring fixed in sketches, in the videos and in photography. Every detail of the custom ring in fact tells the story of its creation and you will get all the evidence 🙂 together with your piece of jewelry. Your ring will be special just because of time, effort, and creativity embedded in it. It will not be a faceless and expensive bauble from the first mall jewelry store that you came across. No compare.
Story of your ring’s creation will be priceless for the next generations of your family as well. I have seen beautiful unique custom rings that were passed down from generation to generation, from the grandmothers to her grandchildren, and were used for numerous proposals. Such engagement rings are a special kind of inheritance that can’t be compared to mass-market jewelry.
Prince Harry inherited Princess Diana’s engagement ring when she died in 1997 but offered it to his brother for his engagement. Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton with this iconic sapphire family heirloom, designed by Garrard, the crown jeweler.
Surely, some premade rings at the mall jewelry stores are interesting and eye-catchy — such as those of big-name jewelry designers. But they will not have a personal touch of its owner. Besides, even an old ring from a famous designer is not obligatory special: in recent years, as well as now, ladies might buy trendy jewelry from one and the same manufacturer. Over time, the descendants might remelt and reuse these mass market rings because these pieces are average and impersonal. In this case, the antique will not necessarily mean unique.
The custom ring will always resemble the personality of the owner. Think how much more valuable an inherited ring could be for a child if he sees the initials engraved on it or personalized details. Your child will keep such a ring as a memento to remember you and the story of your love. It’s one of the most valuable gifts you can do for him.
Your custom ring will ideally suit your personal needs
Your custom ring may be as comfortable as you need it to be. I can remember lots of examples when it was very important that a ring fits its owner. Sometimes this can be one of the most decisive factors for purchasing.
Once we were making a custom ring for a girl with a metal allergy. We had chosen an alloy for her ring, every particle of which was filtered carefully. This has guaranteed that no particle would cause an allergy. Her ring contained only silver and platinum.
Gold, Silver, Platinum, or… maybe Palladium? Palladium is one of the hypoallergenic ring metals and still an unusual choice for an engagement ring. Although it can compete with platinum because both metals are closely related and have many equal traits. This men’s palladium wedding band in the photo is totally hypoallergenic.
A custom ring we made for a doctor was “comfort fit”: it was plain and smooth so that a doctor could put on safety gloves without problems. This ring was also hypoallergenic. Following this concept, we also made a slim ring for a guitar player, and one more in a similar design for a motorcycle girl: she wanted to have a durable ring that she could wear under the glove.
If you believe that you have to pay a fortune for something which suits you perfectly, it’s far from the truth. Among other things, customization means that you are free to choose materials and manage the price. We had a customer who wanted a solitaire in his ring to look like a sparkling sapphire. His budget was a bit constrained for a real one. We made for him a triangle spinel ring that looked no less impressive.
With a custom ring, you will not have the problem of choosing between beautiful and suitable. You will not hunt through the mall jewelry stores looking for a compromise solution. A custom-designed ring can be your ideal blend of beauty & convenience.
You’ll get better quality for the same price
A custom ring may have a price comparable to the price of a premade one. But they are similar only at first glance. When you pick your custom ring up you will immediately feel the difference which is non-obvious when you look at mass-market rings on display.
The differences will be in:
- casting quality,
- polishing quality,
- stone setting.
In one of my videos, I explain how expensive stones can be worse than cheaper ones. You will pay the premium prices for non-premium mall jewelry: poor quality alloy, gemstones fall out of a ring, etc.
Everybody wants a smooth, lustrous, high polished finish to the metal in his ring. The uneven surface of little surface holes are signs of a poor quality ring.
If you find the price of a custom ring is a bit out of your budget, there are many things you can change: choice of precious metal, gemstones, and the complexity of your design. Remember the story about a triangle spinel from the example above? Be sure that an experienced jeweler will offer alternatives suitable for your budget. In no case, the quality of your ring will suffer. By purchasing a custom engagement ring you know exactly what you’re paying for.
You will be a part of the creative process
If you think that participating in the creation process of a custom ring requires special knowledge, you will be pleasantly surprised. No need to be a designer or to be good at gemstones. It will be enough that you are interested. To be a co-designer it’s really a fun process. All you actually need is to have a bit of time. Surely it will take less than visiting one mall jewelry store after another trying to find what coincides with your ideas.
Here is how the creative process will look with us:
- We discuss your ideas or expectations on your ring and most importantly your budget according to it.
- We will develop sketches to be sure that we got your ideas right.
- After we create a 3D model where your ideas will find a more realistic embodiment. Still, at this stage, you can make changes to the ring design.
- You will choose materials: gemstones and ring metal. We will provide you with all the necessary information about their benefits and how these materials will combine in your ring.
- After the ring is finished, you can still more personalize its design by adding engravings, additional gems, etc. We can easily put an inscription with initials or any date important to you.
We prepare several sketches for you to choose from, discuss and change them until we get it right. This service is completely free of charge.
It’s just cool to design something together with a jeweler. Your ideas will be embodied in a stunning piece of jewelry that will stay with you for a long time reminding you of the happiest moments of your life.
You will encourage small business (and not large corporations)
The decision to go to a local jewelry shop and support their business can be quite inspiring and even noble. Many small jewelry shops worked as family businesses through the years and passed down from one generation to the next. They have their own story inextricably linked to the life stories of their customers, they already ingrained in the story of the local community.
Western women buying silver from a local jeweler in Varanasi Benares, India, and maybe are not fully aware of what a good deed they are doing by purchasing from local craftsmanship.
The mission & ideas of a local jewelry store may be deeper and reputation stronger than by some major jewelry retailers. When you buy jewelry from large companies, most of the price goes towards the cost of paying rent, the wages of the staff, the vast marketing, and advertising spend.
Entrusting your engagement ring to an independent jeweler or family shop — rather than going to a big mall store — will only make it more special. Not to mention that you will commit to local craftsmanship to support their business.
You will have personalized service, more cordial and open
Large chains sell to hundreds of customers every day and they can’t devote much time and attention to your needs. A salesperson with his practiced smile does not have the motivation to offer a more cordial personalized service.You will not get it in a big mall jewelry store as you are one of many customers. The task of sales is to sell: the more, the quicklier — the better. An independent jeweler will not force you to buy the first ring you see. His task is to find for you the best option from the possible so that after you recommend him to others. It will be the most effective advertising for him.
Besides, when buying an engagement ring from a mall store, you are interested to know more about the ring materials and other information that can be сritical for your purchase. For example, it may be important to find ethically sourced and conflict-free jewelry. How to ensure your ring is ethical? or totally hypoallergenic? The salesperson may not have full information about it. He won’t bother to find it out because a minute after you left he will not remember your face.
Keep in mind that mall jewelers are not jewelers in the traditional sense, they are just jewelry retailers. Salespersons may have less knowledge or care for the product. The cordial and professional service is more than a practiced smile and memorized sales scripts.
An independent jeweler will be a consultant who knows you personally:
- he calls you by name 🙂
- he cares about your preferences & expectations from a ring;
- he makes you familiar with all options he has for you;
- he is very attentive to your planned budget;
- he shows you loose stones that you can inspect before you pay for it,
- he is able to find the perfect fit for you,
- he gives you free cleanings and inspections and also can give you home cleaners whenever you need them.
Personalized service means that a jeweler will have time for you and you can talk freely about your ideas, vision, and preferences, even if you don’t have a clear picture.
As you see, custom made jewelry (unlike mall jewelry stores) is a great individualized, personalized way to express yourself through jewelry choices. One of the modern jewelry designers Baylee Zwart explained this hottest trend like this: