Weddingbee boards

i have a white sapphire e-ring. i have had people comment on how huge my diamond is. i'm not shy about telling them that they're wrong and that i actually have a white sapphire, not a diamond.

the one picture shows the e-ring with my wedding band. i see the difference in the sunlight, because the rainbows are a bit more prominent with my band, but not indoors. my sapphire does have flash to it when the sun hits it and i do see rainbows, just a bit less than with a diamond.

I have yet to experience anything blatantly rude...just a lot of hinting that I would have been better off with a diamond. For what reasons? They never really get around to that part.

The white sapphire rings in the post are gorgeous. I was initially considering the stone for my e-ring when I discovered moissanite, which I ended up choosing.

Good luck! :)

I started looking at moissanite mostly because while I love the look of diamonds (damn you, DeBeers' marketing team!) they don't fit our budget and I have issues with the diamond industry and certain attitudes about diamonds--probably the same reasons you said you wouldn't get into here.

However, the more I researched the stone..the more I liked it. They rate very high in hardness & toughness (above all other stones, except for a diamond). The retractive index (brilliance) and dispersion (fire) rate above a diamond--basically they're really sparkly!

I don't want to derail the thread entirely by posting a pic of my moissanite ring in a white sapphire thread, but if you'd like to see it let me know :)

I don't think it's necessarily meant to be a substitute for a diamond. It's a gorgeous stone...these rings are beautiful, ladies! I could look at ring photos all day.

I agree @ZoeKat. Alternatives, sure...substitutes no.

As requested...

I recently learned from a neighborhood jeweler (I haven't confirmed it myself) that sapphires do come in many colors, including clear (white), blue, and red. Blue and red sapphires also come in different shades. Another name from red sapphires is "RUBY"! Wow.. that's an interesting thing to note. I don't know anything about gemology but I'm guessing that all these stones that I thought were originally completely different probably have same/similar compositions to  begin with.

Good luck finding your stone!

I'm not even certain that the resale value is that great. You can likely get it appraised for a very high amount but I think the most you can get is whatever the Rapaport wholesale price is.

yeah, i just want to say that i didn't want a diamond. i don't see the point in having something so expensive that just sits on your finger and does nothing. to me spending the money on a house that my future husband and i can live in is much more important than having a diamond ring. like mightysapphire we also could have afforded a beautiful diamond, but that just wasn't something that i wanted. 

i initially was going to go with a colored stone, but decided on the white sapphire when i found it on etsy. i immediately knew it was the ring i wanted. i just couldn't decide which colored stone i liked more, so this was the perfect neutral zone.

now, i don't care what people say about the fact that i don't have a diamond. i have had some weird comments, not necessarily rude, but weird. like people will say "wow look at that diamond", i'll be like, it's a white sapphire and then they'll be like, "oh, it's, erm, nice". if i didn't tell them that it wasn't a diamond, they would have no idea. i like to say something because i like that people know that there are other possibilities out there for stones. 

my ring is conflict free and made with recycled metals, which i think is fantastic. it's also almost as hard as a diamond (it's a 9 on the mohs scale, diamonds are a 10).

in the end, it's really your choice what stone you will be happy with. i will admit that when people started asking about my ring i wished that i had just gotten a diamond, because people can be a bit strange when they find out your ring is not a diamond. it's just easier to be like everyone else. now, i wouldn't change my ring for the world. for one, i love that it's different and two i realized that this ring was the one that my fiance bought for me to tell me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. that's definitely worth more to me than any diamond in the world.

I agree. Non-traditional stones are for me because they're beautiful and I know where they came from (I go with lab created.) It's funny, I went into Zales because a friend of mine works there. He was looking at my moissanite engagement ring, and his manager overheard us talking. The manager said, "Why didn't you get a diamond?!" His tone was kind of accusatory-- it was weird. I just said that I didn't want a diamond and that I prefer moissanite-- that my engagement ring search never involved a diamond. I didn't want to get into the whole blood diamond thing. He seemed pretty pissed off. So rock on nontraditional ring ladies!

P.S. Here's a white sapphire halo I got at Zales that very same day for only 30 dollars! It's lab grown and sterling silver, so it was a steal. It's insanely icy white and throws light in the sun.

Here's a question-- I'm going overseas for a year and am thinking of a decoy ring. If I took the center stone of this ring and had it placed in a thin solitaire setting, do you think it would be too big or flashy? The center stone is almost 2 carats. I need advice on this; I don't want it to attract theft. (I'll be teaching most days and when on weekend trips I'll wear my cheap claddagh ring instead.)