Chris and I started talking about marriage and looking at engagement rings pretty early in our relationship (2 months in!). We started with a few of the large chain jewelry stores in Las Vegas, but soon realized that most of the options available were not what we wanted. The halo styles and princess cuts were nice, but didn’t look right on my long, tiny fingers. We also wanted something symbolic of our relationship and personalities, incorporating leaves or branches to show our love of nature. With such a specific set of needs, we realized that a custom ring was the best option for us. We started looking at diamond shapes and when we saw the way the elongation of a marquise cut diamond complemented my finger, we knew that was what we wanted.
In September 2016, we took a trip to Oregon for my friend Becka’s baby shower. I’d been wanting to get my right hand ring resized, so we stopped by Richard Gretz Goldsmiths, where I’d purchased the ring in 2013 after finishing my Master’s degree. While we were in the shop, we looked around at the rings on display and I fell in love with the delicate details of a white gold ring with gorgeous scrollwork. It had a round cut ruby in it when I tried it on, but the store manager Irene pulled a marquise from their inventory and showed us how it would look. Then Richard came over and sketched up a few ideas for leaves and marquise diamond accents.
We left with the sketches and emailed Irene when we got home about starting to design the ring. After that, it was a pretty easy process. I was involved for the first part of the design, but when it came down to picking the diamond and finalizing the details, Chris did everything on his own and kept the final design a secret from me. For custom work, Richard first sketches the ring and does a series of computer renderings to work out the details. Once the renderings are approved, they make a wax model of the ring and mail it for inspection. Then after that is approved, they finally craft the ring with the gold and diamonds.
Richard Gretz mailed Chris the ring in March 2017, and after checking to make sure it was exactly right, he locked it up in a box to hide it. It sat there for a couple of months, until he found the right moment to propose.
The ring is made of white gold and has a single marquise cut center diamond, plus two smaller marquise side diamonds wrapped in scrollwork and two small round diamonds below the basket setting holding the center stone. There is milgrain around the heart-shaped scrolls, and a leaf design connecting the stone setting to the rest of the band. It is beautiful and perfect for me!