The purpose of this site is to help you in your search for a high quality, yet affordable engagement ring.

You can take advantage of this site in two different ways:

1)      You can read my review articles on different jewelry stores including Zoara, James Allen, Blue Nile, and Helzberg. The readers should know that, with my many years of experience in the diamond industry in both the retail and supply sides, I have my recommendations and preferences among these four stores. However, that doesn’t mean that my recommendation is the best choice in every possible case, so please do your own research as well as using this site as a resource.

2)      You can simply contact me with your specs, budget, and concerns and I’ll give you my best recommendation for your requirements.

I speak with engaged couples all the time looking for a decent price on an engagement ring. After being in the jewelry business for 20 years, I always suggest buying an engagement ring online rather than in a brick and mortar store, ever since the online jewelry market stabilized in the middle of the last decade. The diamond prices online are better and the selection is much larger. Admittedly, it seems a dangerous undertaking, since one never really knows who is behind the desk at an internet-based jewelry company. This is why allaboutjewelry.org exists.

There are so many facets that go into diamond prices and jewelry prices that it can make your head spin. I am retired now, having worked as a diamond exporter in the Belgian market for the last two decades, but I can never get my head fully out of the business. So please use the information I give you here to make the best choice for an engagement ring for you and your loved one. She’ll be wearing it, but it’ll belong to you both.

The first thing you should know about purchasing diamonds and jewelry via that internet is that if you know what to look for, then you don’t have much to worry about in terms of fraud assuming you stick to a big name. All of the major jewelry vendors online show their diamond certificates, be they GIA diamond certificates or another major lab. You can find a very detailed and comprehensive review of recognized diamond certificates here. Make sure that you are able to see actual PDF files rather than a screenshot as PDF files cannot be manipulated.

Diamond certificates will give you all the important parameters for any specific stone including the diamond color, diamond clarity, diamond cut, and diamond carat. There are others including polish and fluorescence among others, regarding which you can find separate articles on the sidebar of this site. I will give you ideas about diamond prices for a given parameter, say if you have a certain color, clarity, cut, and carat, what the price of that particular diamond should be and what would be considered a rip-off.

Contrary to popular belief, in order for an engagement ring to look fantastic, you don’t need to have an internally flawless, or an IF diamond. For most people excluding affluent collectors, this is just a waste of money. At some stores like Zoara and Helzberg, you can even ask that the stone be set in such a way as to cover any imperfection that would otherwise be visible. So for example, if you have a diamond set in a 4 prong setting and your stone has flaws, or inclusions in one corner, ask the store you purchase from to cover up the inclusion with one of the prongs. They will gladly do so.

The beauty of a diamond engagement ring is not how much it costs and what you can tell your friends. It’s how the engagement ring catches the light. If it catches it well, it will also catch your fiancé, without catching your wallet off guard.