Member- MrsToB
- 6 years ago
- Wedding: August 2012
This is probably going to be long, so thanks in advance to anyone who makes it through.
Fiance proposed in February with a ring we picked out together in November. We used the jeweler my family has always gone to, a few hours from where we live but near my mother, which made sense at the time because we had an heirloom stone she would drop off when the time came. (Also, we got a deal on the price, though I’m not sure it was worth the headache at this point.) The setting is identical to Moissanite Co.’s eng731 setting.
When Fiance proposed, the center stone was set very high up, almost all the way above the halo. I wasn’t thrilled, but it’s what he proposed with, so I grew to love it. The bigger and more immediate problem was that the ring was HUGE on me. The jeweler said it was a 5.5, but it flew off my hand. We tied some thread around it until I could drive back to my hometown, and the jeweler sized it down to a 4.75/5, but it was shaped a little strange because, I’m assuming, he wanted to ensure the side stones didn’t pop out. OK, so I came to accept my ring’s weird shape, too.
Not even three months later, I was moving my hand and heard a rattle. My heart sunk: My center stone was loose. Fiance and I immediately took it to a jeweler local to us — who has a fantastic reputation — and he said the way the stone was set was the problem. He showed us how rather than being set securely in the prongs, it was really just resting in them. Fiance is an engineer, and he agreed that was the source of the problem. The jeweler said the best solution would be to move the prongs’ location on the ring and reset the stone to change the angle of the tension. He tightened the prongs as a quick fix, and we brought the ring back a few weeks later and left it for two weeks for the repair. We also asked that the stone be set lower, but we dealt with someone we hadn’t spoken with before, and I think there was some miscommnication.
When I picked up the ring (on Tuesday), the prongs were indeed moved and held the diamond much more securely, but the stone was set even higher than before. I thought at first that I could live with it; after all, I had learned to love the high setting the first time. But the longer I looked at it, I just couldn’t. I was just so angry at this point — angry at the jeweler who screwed up the setting the first time, angry I had to leave my ring for two weeks, angry that the ring didn’t come back like we had expected, angry that I had to pay for that. I couldn’t even wear it at work that night, and I was teary my whole shift — and well after.
I was going to visit my mother in my hometown the next day (on Wednesday), and she begged me to give her jeweler another chance and allow him to lower the stone. “He won’t charge you, and he has a great reputation; it must have been a fluke that the stone came loose so soon,” she essentially said. So … I did. He, of course, bashed the repair from the other jeweler, but he didn’t address why I had problems so soon with his work. He said it’d be no problem to lower the stone, and I also asked him to size it back up a bit, saying I’d rather have it bigger and use sizing beads to adjust for seasonal changes in my finger size. No problem, he said.
When I picked it up, the stone was set exactly where I wanted. But the next day (Thursday), it kept getting caught on my sweater, and I realized the prongs were really sharp. I brought it back, and he smoothed them out. However, later that day, they were still getting caught on my clothes, and I saw that the prongs were smoothed out but still sticking straight up — in the same way that Fiance and I think caused the stone to come loose the first time. So, I brought it back and asked him to please secure the stone and remove the snaggable spots. When I picked it up the next morning (Friday), he complained that it took him 45 minutes to fix. I’m sorry, I thought that was his job. I thanked him and left.
My mother and I then went for coffee with her friends, and they wanted to see the ring. … And then I noticed a bunch of side stones were loose. At this point, I’m pretty sure steam was coming out of my ears. I brought it right back and told him side stones were loose. I could flick them up and down with my nail. He looked and said they weren’t, and I told him to look again. He disappeared into the back for a while and brought it back, handed it to me and said goodbye. Clearly he was angry with me, but I really, really didn’t care. He tighted things up around a couple of stones that were really loose, and I had to leave to drive three hours back home. This was yesterday.
Today (Saturday), Fiance and I notice that most of the side stones can wiggle, maybe eight out of the 12.
I AM SO ANGRY I WANT TO SCREAM.
I love my ring. I think it’s beautiful. But I am SO, SO, SO tired of leaving it at a jeweler’s to get fixed. I’m tired of even having to bring it to a jeweler and explaining what I want and always getting it back with a new problem, no matter how forceful I am that it be corrected. We’ve only had it since February! I feel like I have to be extra careful with it or risk losing a side stone or having the center stone come loose again. This 4-month-old ring holds so much bad history already. It’s beautiful, but it stirs such rage inside me right now. We’ve spent the last few days looking at wedding bands, and I can’t even commit to one because I’m so angry about the e-ring. I don’t know what to do. It feels so tainted and messed with. If I replace it, I’d want essentially the same setting, just new and pure and perfect the first time around. I don’t know how to do that in the most cost-effective way (we paid $1,200 for the first one), or even where I’d find the same or a similar setting at that cost without going back to the first jeweler, which I absolutely refuse to do. I just don’t know what to do.
I don’t even know what I expect to get from posting this. Maybe just to document it, or to hear I’m not crazy. If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate it, and I wish you all better luck with your rings than I’ve had.
