Rachel’s Ring: The most important design of my life

So, I’m still trying to figure out if there is a certain order of things that I should write about. Since we are all friends here, I thought today I would just write about something that brought me such joy, but such challenges, too!

A little over two years ago, during my nightly touch-base with my daughter, Rachel, she told me about a wonderful person that she just had dinner with.  I was actually at the Tucson Gem show with a packed appointment schedule!  I was rushing out to dinner, but I could tell by the way she talked about him that this gentleman was someone special.  I obviously had no idea at the time that he would end up asking me to design the “most beautiful engagement ring ever for the most beautiful girl in the world” (those are his words … obviously I agreed).  How sweet is that? : )

Now, I’ve designed my share of beautiful engagement rings during my lengthy career as a professional jewelry designer. However, it had never really occurred to me that one day, some young man would ask me to design the most important ring of my daughter’s life.  After a few very joyful, exciting but stressful days thinking about the fact that my sweet little baby is getting married, I decided that this was probably one of the most unique blessings a designer can have.  I mean, how many moms get to design their daughter’s engagement ring?

Nearly all of my designs start with an “inspiration”, and for engagement rings, I take it a couple steps further. I really try and set aside some time to try to get to know the bride well enough to design her ring so that it reflects her personality.  Well, I thought I knew my daughter very well, and I got to know her fiancé very well.  He is the perfect guy for her and we love him to death, so it should have been an easy task! Trust me when I say that it was anything BUT easy! In fact, knowing both of them so well and having so many inspirational moments with them sort of got in the way. I was struggling for a while (after all, it had to be PERFECT!), until it all came to me on one Friday afternoon.

After work, Tom brought home a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for Rachel and (being a little bit of a perfectionist), he had this bouquet tied with a beautiful bow. The bouquet was just perfect. It was the embodiment of their relationship.  Perfectly balanced, tender, beautiful, and so full of love and hope! This inspired me to add a subtle, sparkling row of diamonds to “tie” the basket together like a bouquet of flowers.

Tom with his flowers

Tom was going to spend a small fortune on this engagement ring and I wanted to make sure that she would LOVE it. We chose a round brilliant shape for the center.  I thought she would love a unique design that epitomizes her personality…high quality with an element of timelessness so that it will never go out of style.

Tom and I had a little more trouble choosing the metal color.  We went back and forth on this over and over.  Yellow is the most traditional (she definitely appreciates tradition), platinum is timeless and almost has an heirloom feel to it, and rose gold is very romantic, and a huge trend but will it be in style 15 years from now? After toggling back and forth on the pros and cons of each metal choice, we chose to design her ring with 18K rose gold for the body of the ring but set the center diamond in platinum for a subtle contrast, a hint of freshness and also to add additional brightness to the stunning diamond center stone.

For the band, I chose to set a few exceptionally sparkly diamonds, sprinkled along the shoulder of the band in a simple but dramatic fashion.  On her hand, it looks like the center diamond is almost “floating”.  Again, this is so symbolic of Rachel and Tom.  Whenever they are together, they are so happy, and they literally float around with joy and laughter.  I know, I’m her mom and obviously I am a proud mom, but Rachel really does have such a sparkling personality, and this design is the perfect embodiment of all of her amazing qualities.

Anyway, I wanted to share my joy with you in designing the most beautiful, important, sentimental piece I have ever designed.

The Ring

From their Engagement Shoot

All of us together on New Years Eve