Designing the Best Engagement Ring for you

There are tons of online jewelers with a “build-your-own-ring” option that offer semi-customized styles, but jewelry is personal. An engagement ring is likely the most significant piece of jewelry you’ll ever purchase, whether you’re buying it as a surprise or shopping together, and no matter how many pre-made options a web-tool can offer, often custom design needs to be truly custom.

Secrète Fine Jewelry in Washington, DC, and Bethesda, MD, offers the inside scoop on a true custom, high-end, jewelry design process (and spoiler-alert: it doesn’t involve anything prefabricated). Mr. Soo, the master goldsmith at Secrète’s workshop, uses jewelry making techniques that have been around for centuries, making models from wax, and using hand-setting techniques to deliver exactly what you want, even if it’s completely unique.

What are the pros and cons of going old-school with custom engagement ring design?

Pros:

●    Anything you want is possible! You’re not limited to what’s already available. For example, if you see a ring you love online, but you wish its shank were dantier or it had 4 prongs instead of 6, or if you want it to sit lower on your hand, that’s possible! Or if you want to design something completely original and unique that’s sure to impress when you propose, that’s only available with truly custom jewelry design.

Secrète Fine Jewelry made this beautiful Ceylon sapphire and diamond ring from a photo of an antique ring the bride loved but was no longer available. This Washington, DC couple was able to get a masterful recreation of a classic.

●    Stone sourcing! If you want an ethical Canadian diamond or Montana sapphire, you aren’t limited to what you can add to an online shopping cart- our team will source the exact stone you want from the exact source you want, without large corporate contracts or any red tape to worry about. Secrète’s decades of experience gives us the knowhow and flexibility you need to source loose stones.

●    This gorgeous three stone ring incorporated diamonds and white gold from an heirloom brooch belonging to the bride’s grandmother. The groom flew halfway across the country to get it!

●    You get a personal relationship with the designer! When you have a custom engagement ring designed at Secrète Fine Jewelry, you meet with the person designing your ring, you get to talk about your bride- or groom-to-be, so the ring is actually designed for you, your personalities, your love story, your life.

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This aquamarine and diamond engagement ring was made by Secrète Fine Jewelry for a sweet groom-to-be resetting family stones. Now this Northern Virginia-based family can carry on this heirloom for another generation.

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●    You’re not limited to what’s “in style” right now! If you’re a bit of an iconoclast, preferring antique styles or sculptural artistic lines or maybe you simply like to think outside the box or in gender-nonconformist terms, you may have trouble finding the right engagement ring among the cookie-cutter rings available on chain-store websites. At a high-end boutique with a personal designer, however, you’re free to express yourself, your style, vintage or modern, masculine or feminine, understated or bold, whoever you are!

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This beautiful sculptural ring by Secrète is for those whose sense of style goes beyond “fashion.”

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●    You get the most romantic proposal story! When you’ve had a ring handmade just for your loved one, you’ll have a story to impress all your friends!

●    Affordability! At Secrète Fine Jewelry, custom doesn’t stop at the design drawings! We can help you find the best lab-certified loose diamonds and the most amazing settings for your budget. We design to give you the best craftsmanship and most value for your dollar, no matter what your budget.

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We designed this gorgeous AAA emerald engagement ring in 2018 for a very cool couple at our DuPont Circle Store. We were able to make it to the best specifications and also fit their budget.

●    Cons:

●    Too many options! Since the sky is the limit, sometimes the custom-design process can be overwhelming. If you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, we recommend you browse our photos to find some engagement rings you like or you’d like to know more about. After narrowing down a few things like cut or silhouette, the options are no longer overwhelming.

●    It can be challenging to the imagination. Since we make each engagement ring for each couple, your ring doesn’t exist before we make it. Sometimes, clients have trouble imagining the finished product. We offer many helpful solutions to help you realize the finished product: we show stones, let you try on the models, and actually you get a better feel for the way a finished product will look on your hand than with simply a photograph.

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These molds are examples of the thousands of original molds in Secrète Fine Jewelry’s Bethesda, MD workshop.

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●    Instant gratification… When you get your engagement ring made, the process usually takes between 2-4 weeks at Secrète. While it’s not the instant gratification of choosing something off the shelf and walking out with it that day, we believe that good things are worth the wait!

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●    For more information, visit our website or stop by our boutique in Wildwood Shopping Center in North Bethesda, Maryland, or our DuPont Circle store in Washington, DC, or contact us today.

●    We work with engagement clients in the Metro-DC area and all over the world, offering free insured worldwide shipping.  Also, check us out on Instagram and Facebook!