Getting engaged is a big thing. You don’t want to risk a “no” for an answer, so you have to make sure you choose the perfect engagement ring to offer your sweetheart. You have to impress her, so that she doesn’t have time to think about the pros and cons of taking your relationship to the next level.

Besides, you want her to wear your ring with pleasure. This is why you have to make sure you choose one she’s absolutely going to love. However, when you are a guy who knows nothing about diamonds or other jewelry pieces, this can be quite a hard thing to do.

First of all, you should know that an engagement ring should be a solitaire. This means you should get a very simple ring with only one diamond in a bezel setting. Now that you know what type of ring you should look for, you can go ahead and determine which is the favorite diamond shape of your fiancée. There are multiple shapes. They refer rather to the geometry of the stone rather than its cut.

Getting into the diamond 4Cs

After the shape, there comes the cut. This refers to the angles of the facets in the diamond. The most popular cut is the round brilliant one, which has a brilliance and a symmetry very hard not to fall in love with. There are also other cuts such as the step cut and the Princess cut. You have to read about all these cuts and try to figure out which is the one your girl prefers. If you want to be creative and romantic, you can choose a heart cut. However, if you aren’t sure she’s going to love it, you should better stay on the safe side and choose one of the classic cuts such as radiant, Ascher, emerald, oval, cushion or marquise. The pear cut is also beautiful, but it fits better for earrings rather than engagement rings.

The size is also important, but it is limited by your purchasing power. The bigger the diamond, the more expensive the ring, so you are probably going to stay in the small range, even if your sweetheart prefers huge stones. If you really want to impress her, you may consider borrowing some money from friends in order to afford a bigger stone. However, this doesn’t make the point of this article, so let’s stick with the features of the perfect engagement ring from a theoretical point of view.

You may not know, but diamonds are characterized by a series of attributes known as the 4Cs. These attributes are cut, color, clarity and carat. You can inform yourself on the various options you have, but you should be aware that most people have no idea about assessing diamonds. If you love a girl outside the jewelry industry, you can safely choose the least expensive options in terms of clarity and color. The carat refers to the size of the stone, so this is going to be set rather by your budget than by other criteria.

The clarity is important, but you should know the extremely pure diamonds are very rare, hence very expensive. Stones in the middle of the clarity scale look similar to those very expensive ones when viewed with the naked eye. However, their price is going to be significantly lower.

The color is also important and again, the perfectly clear diamonds are very expensive. Nonetheless, you can find less expensive ones that look also perfect unless you view them against a perfectly white background.

Finding the perfect compromise

The main point of this research is to find a compromise between the various attributes of an engagement ring, so that you can get the best value for your money. As you can’t exceed your budget too much, you have to find a solution to get a good size stone with a nice brilliance and with beautiful facets, a stone your fiancée wouldn’t cease to admire. If you are careful to choose the cut she likes most, she’s going to be less prone to noticing other details.

Last but not least, you have to choose a high quality setting for your diamond. The metal framework can set the tone for the ring, so don’t overlook it.