I want to talk a little bit about diamonds – something many of you might be shopping for right now. Diamonds can be a bit tricky to shop for. There are okay diamonds, there are good diamonds, and then there are great diamonds. Most consumers don’t know that the majority of jewelry stores carry mainly okay to good diamonds. They’ll often pressure you to pay more for certain features of a diamond that don’t really matter much, yet they’ll ignore the features that really do matter and make a diamond look nicer. Not only are your typical jewelry stores overpriced, but you’ll often walk away paying more for a lesser quality stone! Now there are good jewelry stores out there, but you do have to be careful.
I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to go over a few tips. Now, if you want a more in depth reading of our diamond ring buying guide, check it out here: www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com/ringguide.html
However, if you already know somewhat of the basics, I’m going to let you in on a few secrets on how to save hundreds to thousands of dollars off of already low priced diamonds, and how to walk away with a great looking diamond.
1. If you’re searching for a round diamond, try to stick to an ideal or excellent cut diamond (ideal and excellent mean the same thing). This is what gives a diamond its sparkle, and most jewelry stores don’t carry very many of these.
2. Make sure that the diamond is not only certified, but make sure that it’s certified by a respected diamond grading institute like GIA. You’ll often find uncertified diamonds, or diamonds certified by no-name institutes or even certified by the jeweler himself/herself, for less money than similar diamonds because they aren’t always truthful. They’ll report the features of the diamond often being far better than what they are (trying to trick the consumer). So be careful and asked for certified diamonds (GIA is always a good choice and a very common one for great diamonds).
3. Shopping online can often save you hundreds of dollars compared to picking up a similar stone, or even a lesser stone, at your local jeweler simply because online companies don’t have as much of an overhead cost and can afford to sell them at a cheaper price. Depending on the state that you’re in, you sometimes don’t even need to pay sales tax when you shop online.
4. Worry less about clarity and more about color and cut. Jewelers often try to talk buyers into paying tons more for a higher clarity (clarity is how easy it is to see inclusions – all diamonds have inclusions for the most part – it’s just a matter of how easy you can see them). What most consumers don’t know is that an SI1 or SI2 diamond can save you hundreds to thousands compared to higher clarities, but the trick here is to ask for an eye clean diamond. An eye clean diamond means that NO inclusions can be seen from looking at the diamond from the top down (the part that shows). Even VS1 and VS2 diamonds aren’t necessarily eye clean, and buying an SI1 or SI2 diamond that is eye clean can get you a wonderful diamond that is a lot less. Also worry about color. A “D,” “E,” or “F” diamond is in the colorless range, and you won’t be able to see any of a yellow tint to it. A “G” diamond is usually okay, but anything higher you might want to double think. Many diamonds at jeweler stores are in the G, H, and I range. Depending on the light, you’ll be able to see a yellow tint on an H or I (or higher) diamond. So to sum it up, look for an eye clean diamond (and to save some money, maybe try the SI1 or SI2 range) and try to get a diamond preferably in the D, E, or F range.
5. Watch out for jewelry stores/chains that claim to have their own “ideal” cut diamond that is better than any other ideal cut diamond. Some stores take a normal ideal or excellent cut diamond and either just rename it or add a few facets to it (not really making any difference). This is okay – it’s mainly just a publicity thing. The second part to this is more of a scheme. Some jewelry stores will rename an average cut to their “ideal” cut and try to play it off that way, which confuses and tricks many consumers. With any diamond, just be sure to check its grading report and see what the cut is labeled there.
I hope you found our tips useful here, and I hope that you don’t fall for some of the common tricks out there. Diamond buying can be a scary thing (I know, I’ve been there myself!), but if you go into it a bit educated, you can walk away with some great diamonds at great prices.
I’d like to offer anyone reading this article a FREE diamond search (we can also search for rings and settings either together or separately with or without your diamond). Please visit www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com/diamondsearch.html and let me know what your price range is and what type of diamond you’re looking for (as far as shape, size, etc.), and I’ll conduct a free search for you to find the lowest prices on the highest quality diamonds. We search our database of over 60,000 diamonds from dozens of the highest quality and most respected diamond/jewelry sites (we don’t accept them unless they have great return policies, no gimmicks, and the like), and then we offer our advice on each one we find for you. We’ll even call the jewelers on your behalf to ask some very important questions for you. And if you think this sounds too good to be true, follow the above link to find out how we do it for free (the jewelry sites pay us a tiny commission for pointing a potential buyer in their direction, but we only do it if they have the cheapest deals on high quality, respectably certified diamonds). If you already know what you'll be buying and from what site, feel free to e-mail us and provide us with the diamond(s) that you are looking at and we'll offer you our free advice on each one.
I’ve never done a single diamond search where I haven’t saved someone at least a few hundred (typically A LOT more). Feel free to also e-mail me at brian@marriage-proposal-ideas.com.
As always, visit www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com for free proposal ideas and advice or www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com/deals.html for current diamond deals and promotions. We always try to have the best deals on the internet and an exclusive deal directly through our site as well to beat any other deal out there.
Brian K.
brian@marriage-proposal-ideas.com
www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com
9/28/2006
9/25/2006
Marriage Proposal Tips
Marriage proposals can be just as hard, if not harder, than selecting a diamond engagement ring! Luckily, they don’t have to be as expensive. From my experience, I’ve heard hundreds of men and women talking about throwing hundreds of dollars into a proposal. Now some of those can turn out quite nice, but others are easily outdone by several ideas that cost next to nothing. A nice dinner or a nice hotel stay IS NOT a good proposal idea all by itself. Now you can easily incorporate that, or any other idea, into a great proposal idea, but there are a few things you should be careful for and try to accomplish.
1. Try to make the proposal unique and personal to the two of you. What special things do the two of you have in common? What’s a place or something that only the two of you share?
2. Try to incorporate your past memories into the idea somehow. The two of you obviously have at least some type of a history, and hopefully at least most if not all of it is a happy one! Why not incorporate all of that into a proposal idea? Why not revisit all of the excellent memories the two of you have and pick out the things that stand out in your relationship. If you use some of this in your idea, you can build up all the happy memories and emotions into one big climax – popping the question.
3. Try to do something or have something that can be remembered. Try to create something that you can take away from the proposal as a remembrance of your proposal day to always bring back those good memories. As an added bonus, it can also make for great bragging rights!
4. Be sure to do something that both of you are comfortable with. If she (or he) doesn’t like big crowds or public affairs, do something more between just the two of you. If she’s the wild or crazy type, then do a wild or crazy proposal idea! If she’s the romantic type, try to add a touch of that in it to. If she’s a bit of everything, then incorporate everything into one big event.
5. The proposal idea does NOT have to be one event. You can make an entire day of it … or even an entire week of events if you really want. This way you can cover all of your ideas – just give it a little thought!
6. Try to pick up on little clues from her/him that you have learned about each other throughout all your time together. If she absolutely loves the songs by the guy on the corner with his flute that the two of you always pass by, why not get that guy in on it??? Do you realize how easy it would be to pull that off as part of your proposal, yet how AMAZING something like that would seem to her?
7. Make it a surprise! If she wants to pick out her diamond ring ahead of time, that’s fine. But keep the proposal a complete secret! You want her to be totally shocked by it. Guard it at all costs!
It's not too hard to come up with the perfect marriage proposal idea, but you do have to put some thought into it. I encourage everyone to think about their marriage proposal ideas long and hard and try to think of how you'd remember it 10, 20, or 50 years in the future.
Visit www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com for more marriage proposal ideas and advice.
1. Try to make the proposal unique and personal to the two of you. What special things do the two of you have in common? What’s a place or something that only the two of you share?
2. Try to incorporate your past memories into the idea somehow. The two of you obviously have at least some type of a history, and hopefully at least most if not all of it is a happy one! Why not incorporate all of that into a proposal idea? Why not revisit all of the excellent memories the two of you have and pick out the things that stand out in your relationship. If you use some of this in your idea, you can build up all the happy memories and emotions into one big climax – popping the question.
3. Try to do something or have something that can be remembered. Try to create something that you can take away from the proposal as a remembrance of your proposal day to always bring back those good memories. As an added bonus, it can also make for great bragging rights!
4. Be sure to do something that both of you are comfortable with. If she (or he) doesn’t like big crowds or public affairs, do something more between just the two of you. If she’s the wild or crazy type, then do a wild or crazy proposal idea! If she’s the romantic type, try to add a touch of that in it to. If she’s a bit of everything, then incorporate everything into one big event.
5. The proposal idea does NOT have to be one event. You can make an entire day of it … or even an entire week of events if you really want. This way you can cover all of your ideas – just give it a little thought!
6. Try to pick up on little clues from her/him that you have learned about each other throughout all your time together. If she absolutely loves the songs by the guy on the corner with his flute that the two of you always pass by, why not get that guy in on it??? Do you realize how easy it would be to pull that off as part of your proposal, yet how AMAZING something like that would seem to her?
7. Make it a surprise! If she wants to pick out her diamond ring ahead of time, that’s fine. But keep the proposal a complete secret! You want her to be totally shocked by it. Guard it at all costs!
It's not too hard to come up with the perfect marriage proposal idea, but you do have to put some thought into it. I encourage everyone to think about their marriage proposal ideas long and hard and try to think of how you'd remember it 10, 20, or 50 years in the future.
Visit www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com for more marriage proposal ideas and advice.
Introduction and About Our Site
Since I just started this blog, I'd like to briefly introduct myself before I make my first post. My name is Brian, and I run www.marriage-proposal-ideas.com along with my wife, Julia, where we have a free marriage proposal ideas guide that covers over 100 marriage proposal ideas, and each idea is not only followed by a detailed explanation of how to pull it off and personalize it, but also by the opinion of a man and a woman for each idea. We made it so that each idea can easily be combined with others or your current idea to make for a completely unique proposal.
Our hope is to solve your every need before you propose -- from helping you with your marriage proposal ideas to helping you pick out the perfect ring. We feel overjoyed everytime we're able to help someone in either of these areas. I'm also a diamond consultant. Although I don't sell any diamonds myself, I try to set up special deals through as many of the top jewelry sites as possible and try to help people select high quality diamonds for less. It's amazing how easy it is to save someone hundreds to thousands of dollars and have them still walking away with a better diamond!
I hope you join us as we provide you with advice on everything you need to know before you propose.
Visit us to check out our free marriage proposal ideas and diamond buying advice or e-mail me at brian@marriage-proposal-ideas.com. You can also check out our latest promotions, coupons, and discounts for the top diamond / jewelry sites at our diamond discounts page.
Our hope is to solve your every need before you propose -- from helping you with your marriage proposal ideas to helping you pick out the perfect ring. We feel overjoyed everytime we're able to help someone in either of these areas. I'm also a diamond consultant. Although I don't sell any diamonds myself, I try to set up special deals through as many of the top jewelry sites as possible and try to help people select high quality diamonds for less. It's amazing how easy it is to save someone hundreds to thousands of dollars and have them still walking away with a better diamond!
I hope you join us as we provide you with advice on everything you need to know before you propose.
Visit us to check out our free marriage proposal ideas and diamond buying advice or e-mail me at brian@marriage-proposal-ideas.com. You can also check out our latest promotions, coupons, and discounts for the top diamond / jewelry sites at our diamond discounts page.
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