If the time has come to start shopping for engagement rings, you may not know how to feel or what steps to follow while you’re on the hunt. You’ve already done the difficult part of deciding you would like to marry your partner, but how do you choose an engagement ring that reflects the level of care and love you feel toward this significant person in your life? What should you research? How should you feel when you finally see “the one” for your partner out of the sea of other engagement rings?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of shopping for engagement rings, you’re starting in the right place by seeking some assistance. We know how complicated and important this stage in your life is, so we’d like to offer you some of our top tips for selecting engagement rings that you and your partner will cherish. If this sounds beneficial to you, continue reading for our complete breakdown of the process, plus a few additional insights.
Do: Give Yourself Plenty of Time
We recommend holding your horses if you’re planning to pop the question next week but have given yourself no time to prepare. If you want to make a personalized ring to truly celebrate your partner, be prepared to wait several months for everything to be completed to your liking. Creating an engagement ring is a lengthy and tedious process, and the jewelers know how crucial it is to get all of the details perfect.
Giving yourself plenty of time, even as much as six months to a year, will give you enough time to learn about your partner’s preferences, research jewelry companies, and select the style you both love. This also allows you to avoid drawing too much suspicion from your partner if you’d like to keep it a surprise.
Do: Some Serious Research
We also recommend you highly consider your partner’s preferences, your budget, and research several different jewelry companies. Learning about your partner’s opinion will make it far easier to choose a ring they will love, whether they are outright about the cut they like, if they care about the number of carats, what gems they want, and more. We suggest enlisting the help of your partner’s friends or family to ask questions and divert any suspicion.
You should also heavily research potential jewelry companies. This may start with your partner’s recommendations for jewelers they already love, but this may also mean looking into how the company sources their jewels—or if their jewels are sustainably sourced. Each company may specialize in specific designs, settings, and styles, including florals and using multiple gems. It’s also essential to learn how long each company’s process will take once a final design has been chosen.
Don’t: Feel Like You Need to Spend Everything
Before you set off into the process of shopping for engagement rings, be sure you set a strict budget. While some people will spend several thousand dollars on the perfect ring, many will spend one to three thousand dollars. Everyone has a different budget, and there is no shame if yours is larger or smaller than someone else’s. However, it does matter if your engagement ring spend cuts into your ability to live comfortably and meet your basic needs, so be mindful of this when shopping around.
Do: Consider Asking for Your Partner’s Opinion
Hopefully, you and your partner have already decided that you want to get married, which should include speaking about what you each expect from the wedding, life after marriage, and other details. We recommend you try asking for your partner’s opinion on the ring, as this may help inform your expected budget and final design choices when working with a jeweler.
If you’re worried about ruining the surprise, there are ways to still keep your partner on their toes. Maybe you’ll keep the final design a surprise from them, or you can enlist the help of close friends or family members who know about your plans. Whatever you do, getting the inside scoop about what your partner wants is a great way to guarantee they’ll love the final ring.
Do: Learn Your Partner’s Ring Size
When planning to get engaged, it’s essential to know that resizing a ring is almost always an expensive process. Therefore, before you allow the jeweler to start working, we urge you to learn your partner’s accurate ring size. Unfortunately, purchasing an engagement ring is not as simple as buying and exchanging clothes or shoes for the correct size.
You can learn your partner’s ring size in several ways, although some may require you to get more creative than others. If they wear a ring on either ring finger, such as a promise ring or one related to religious beliefs, you may already have the perfect size at your disposal. While each ring finger is unlikely to be precisely the same size, getting the size of a one ring finger will likely be helpful. You can also ask friends to get your partner to try on their rings and report their findings back to you, or even take one of their rings to a jeweler to get it accurately sized.
Conclusion
If you are ready to pop the question, we’re excited for you to begin this next part of your life journey. Planning for the perfect engagement ring may be difficult if you want to keep the proposal a surprise, so don’t be afraid to ask for help! Regardless, if you were looking for some tips, we hope you found our suggestions useful.
