Q&A: Help Choosing a Princess Cut Diamond for a Yellow Gold Pavé With a $3,500 Budget and Shipping to Sweden

Hi Diamond Pro,

Firstly, thanks for this amazing service that you are providing.

I’m looking to buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend. I started looking about a month ago, mostly on Blue Nile since my best friend’s fiancé told me about the site. About a week ago she told me that she used your service to find a diamond and that she found it helpful.

Lately I have searched the James Allen website for settings and diamonds. I think that I’ve found a diamond which meets “my” requirements but I want to run it by you to see if I’m paying for unnecessary characteristics such as high clarity and high color.

My budget is a total of around 3500$. I know that my girlfriend wants a princess cut and a yellow gold setting and I’m happy with the 1160$ “Pave cathedral engagement ring” setting that I found on the James Allen website.

I’ve also looked at this diamond which looks good to me.
www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/0.71-carat-f-color-vvs2-clarity-sku-2693114?a_aid=dmnd1357

What is your opinion on this diamond? It’s an ideal cut diamond but you could also get about the same size diamond with a true heart cut, but you would have to go down in clarity, do you think that doing that is a better option? Is the color and clarity unnecessarily high?

I like that the stone is over 5×5 mm. if you could send me some other stones which you would suggest with my budget I would appreciate it!

Many thanks.

Thanks for your help.

The diamond you recommended looks nice, however in one of the corners you can see some black spotting (impurities, I guess). I understand that the picture of the diamond is enhanced in size and that this diamond would be “eye-clean”. But it’s hard to unsee something. I’m willing to pay around 2500$ for the diamond if going down clarity and color would mean that you would get a noticeable larger diamond.

Otherwise 2000$ is better since it’s likely I’ll have to pay duty and VAT for importing it to Europe. I have also looked at this diamond, but I guess it’s the same thing with this one (paying for high clarity and color): www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/0.73-carat-e-color-vvs2-clarity-sku-3177645?a_aid=dmnd1357

When choosing color of diamond does it matter if the setting is in white cold or yellow gold?

Ok, good to know regarding the metal and stone color.

Blue Nile have nice diamonds but I like the settings on James Allen better. I could look at the Blue Nile settings again and see if I find one that I like and get back to you if I find one. Meanwhile you could absolutely use Blue Nile to find suggestions on diamonds.

Thanks again for all your help.

I liked both diamonds from Blue Nile. Can you explain the difference between:
1. thick girdle
2. thick girdle, faceted?

I had trouble finding a similar setting as the one that I liked on James Allen. It seems that Blue Nile doesn’t have that many different yellow gold settings. Do you know if it is possible to ask them to do a setting in a different metal? If they would, will it cost more?

I read somewhere on your website that princess cuts with a depth and table under 71% each is ideal? Do I recall it correctly?

As I’m leaning towards going with James Allen what do you think about these diamond?
www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/0.70-carat-h-color-vvs2-clarity-sku-3200198?a_aid=dmnd1357

www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/0.74-carat-h-color-vvs2-clarity-sku-3231066?a_aid=dmnd1357

Many thanks!

Thanks for all your help! I ordered from James Allen using this email.

This was the diamond I went with:
www.jamesallen.com/loose-diamonds/princess-cut/0.70-carat-h-color-vvs2-clarity-sku-3200198?a_aid=dmnd1357

Once again thanks for your help and patience.

I would be happy to recommend this service to friends.

No problem! I’ll let you know how the diamond turned out.

Many thanks!