When planning your wedding, you need jewelry for both parties. When you are buying engagement rings, there are so many jewelry stores that it can be hard to pick the best one. The best quality diamond stores tend to specialize in diamonds and their settings. There is no one way to buy diamonds any more. It can be done both in-person and online. The best way to buy diamonds is different for each person. Some need to get out and to see the gems before they can pick one. Others don’t want to leave home and are happy to shop online.
At an in-person store, you can describe a diamond ring to a jeweler and have that ring made for you. Whether it’s white gold, yellow gold, or diamond and black settings, it can be created for you if you know what to ask for. Choosing diamonds should take a little time, as they will be in your life forever. That’s why it’s important to shop around before you pick one.
It has been said that diamonds “are a girl’s best friend.” However, even though diamonds are quite lovely, there’s another precious gemstone that makes an even bigger impact — an emerald. These beautiful green gemstones make a bold color statement in fine pieces of jewelry such as an emerald tennis bracelet, engagement ring, or earrings. Although emeralds are often passed over in favor of diamonds, recent statistics have shown a growing enthusiasm for this magnificent green stone.
According to BMO Capital Markets, diamonds remain on top of the estimated $21 billion precious stone market, claiming about 90% of sales as recently as 2012. But stones that are rarer than diamonds — and are yet cheaper — have started giving the age-old favorite a run for it’s money: rubies, sapphires, and the ever-stunning green emerald. Meanwhile, the price of polished diamonds has fallen steadily over the last three to five years, which is no doubt a symptom of an unstable economy and conservative luxury shopping all over the world.
Some of this is just a natural shift in tastes, as more and more women are looking for a more eye-catching, colorful expression through their jewelry. Whereas the purity and clarity of diamonds has held evergreen allure (no pun intended) for ages now, the tides have begun to turn. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt the colored gemstone market to have the Duchess of Cambridge sporting a stunning sapphire engagement ring. Suddenly, emerald stone engagement rings have increased in popularity and something like an emerald tennis bracelet seems very desirable.
The rarity of true colored gemstones also creates desire. Emeralds, rubies and sapphires are each only to be found in two or three countries, and they’re “difficult” locations, often torn by war or inaccessible in some other way. This is one of the main reasons why the market remained untapped: their difficult to access nature scared off the larger companies that had the millions of dollars in capital required to “sink a mine.” This relegated most sales of colored gemstones to smaller companies, making them tricky to stock in stores and making it equally challenging for top-name jewelry designers to be able to use them in any prominent way, lest they be unable to complete a piece or fill an order due to a lack of supply.
Through savvy marketing, however, companies like Gemifields Plc — the world’s largest emerald mining operation — are working to create a similar branding success with emeralds as was enjoyed by diamond-dynamos, De Beers, for much of the last century. Colored gemstones are rapidly becoming a great way to look stylish and elegant without breaking the bank. From ruby dangle earrings to sapphires in Victorian settings to an emerald bangle bracelet or the aforementioned emerald tennis bracelet, colored gemstones are about to explode.
