What Actually Happens At Your First Engagement Ring Consultation

The lift doors open on the first floor, and you are already rehearsing what to say. Most people arrive at a first engagement ring consultation with a phone full of screenshots, a budget they are slightly embarrassed about, and a low hum of worry that they are about to be found out. Found out as […]
How To Compare Two Engagement Ring Quotes And Judge The Value

Two quotes. Same brief, same budget, same saved screenshots. One is 40% higher than the other. Both jewellers seemed competent, both produced certificates, and neither did anything you could point at. This is where most buyers make their worst decision, because only 2 moves appear to be available and both are bad. Take the cheaper […]
How To Choose A Wedding Band That Sits With Your Engagement Ring

The engagement ring is done. It has been said yes to, photographed, admired at 3 separate dinners, and it has quietly become part of the hand it lives on. Then, some months later, a second question arrives that nobody prepared you for. What goes next to it? Matching a wedding band to an engagement ring […]
Why the Setting Style You Choose Matters More Than You Think

There is a moment in almost every engagement ring consultation at Smith and Green when the conversation shifts. The couple has spent twenty minutes discussing carat weight and colour grades, comparing two stones that look nearly identical in the light of 9 Hatton Garden. Then someone asks: Which setting? And the room changes. Because the […]
How Long Does A Bespoke Engagement Ring Take From Sketch To Proposal?

Someone walked into the 9 Hatton Garden showroom one Wednesday in late October with a flight booked to Edinburgh on the 23rd of December. He had not bought a ring. He had not chosen a stone. He had a partner he loved very much and a proposal location already chosen, and he wanted to know […]
Engagement Ring Setting Styles Compared: Claw, Pavé, Bezel, and Halo

The centre stone is chosen. The carat weight is settled, the certificate is in hand, and the buyer at the consultation table has been quietly thrilled for 20 minutes. Then the next question lands and the room goes quiet. Which setting. Claw, pavé, bezel or halo. Most buyers arrive at Smith and Green’s 9 Hatton […]
Choosing Wedding Bands That Match Your Engagement Ring

A couple sits at the consultation table on a quiet Thursday at 9 Hatton Garden, the engagement ring already a year old on the left hand, the wedding eight months away. They have come in to choose the wedding bands. Within ten minutes, it becomes clear that the engagement ring was bought in a hurry, […]
Sapphire, Ruby or Emerald. How to Choose a Gemstone Engagement Ring

There is a particular kind of buyer who arrives at Smith and Green already knowing they do not want a diamond. Not because a diamond is wrong but because something else is more right. A deep Kashmir-blue sapphire in an 18ct white gold bezel. A vivid Mozambique ruby flanked by trillion-cut white diamonds. A Colombian […]
How to Match Your Engagement Ring and Wedding Band the Right Way

There are four decisions every engaged couple needs to make about the wedding band. Most people are aware of one of them. They choose a metal, assume the band will sit next to the engagement ring in a natural and obvious way, and then arrive at the fitting to discover that the engagement ring’s profile […]
Platinum or White Gold for Your Engagement Ring. The Real Difference

Most couples arrive at this question after they have already decided they want a white metal. The stone is chosen or nearly chosen. The setting style is taking shape. And then the jeweller asks: platinum or white gold? For many buyers, the question lands as an unwelcome complication. Both metals look the same in the […]