While almost everyone associates an engagement ring with a diamond, there’s no hard and fast rule that says it has to be this way.

If price is an issue, a simulated diamond is an option.  Cubic zirconia and Moissanite are getting better and better each day and it can be hard even for experts to tell them apart from real diamonds.  Of course, you should be upfront with the bride to be if you’re going this route.  Don’t start your marriage off with a lie.

Colored gemstones are another alternative.  Emeralds, sapphires and rubies are some of the more common stones used in an engagement ring.  If your bride to be really likes her birthstone, that is a good choice.

More ideas can be found here.  Does any one have an engagement ring with a stone that is not a diamond?

There’s a great tutorial on how to photograph your engagement ring that I just read.  If you want to send a picture to family or friends that live far from you, or if you just want to update your Facebook profile, you want the ring to look its best.

Briefly, you need to turn off the flash, make sure you have good light, find a creative way to display the ring and use macro mode if your camera has it.  The full tutorial is here.  Anyone else have any experience photographing their engagement rings?

I read an interesting story about someone who proposed to his wife in a hotel room filled with balloons.  When she said yes, he told her that she had to figure out which balloon was hiding the ring.  So, she started popping all of the balloons to find the engagement ring.  She made so much noise that the manager called up to the room and asked them to keep it down.  The full story is here.  Do you have any creative proposal stories to share?

When Kevin Jonas proposed to Danielle Delasa, he did it with a ring designed by Jacob and Co.  The ring was a 3 carat solitare cushion cut for the center stone.  It was surrounded by 210 round brilliant cut pave diamonds.  You can read more here.

Carrie Underwood has a new ring on her left hand. While there’s no official word as to how big it is, estimates put it at more than 5 carats. That means it’s worth around $150,000, give or take a few thousand dollars. Carrie recently got engaged to the Ottowa Senators Mike Fisher. More info can be found here. Tell me what you think about the ring!

Is it safe to buy a
Blue Nile engagement ring online?  If you’re a smart shopper and have been doing your online research on engagement rings, you can’t have looked for too long before coming across Blue Nile.  It was founded in 1999 and bills itself as the leading online retailer of diamonds and fine jewelry.  But, do they live up to the  hype?

You have to get over the hurdle of the fact that you are buying an engagement ring sight unseen.  So, you really need to be able to trust who you are buying from.  There are two things that make Blue Nile pretty trustworthy.  The first is that they offer a 30 day return policy.  If you aren’t happy with the ring, just send it back.  As long as it’s not damaged or showing signs of wear, they will take it back.  The second thing is that they have received good ratings from other companies.  They have been  named Forbes Favorite Jeweler every year since 2000.  Positive articles have been written about Blue Nile in the New York Times, Kiplinger, The Economist, Business Week and Fortune magazines.

Price is of course something that you want to factor into your decision.  Luckily Blue Nile can offer lower prices than you would find in your local mall or shopping center.  Since Blue Nile doesn’t own any retail stores, they have low overhead.  They have an office in Seattle and a warehouse outside of town.  They don’t have to pay salaries and benefits to a sales force.  Also, they buy diamonds in huge quantities.  Blue Nile buys around $170 million worth of diamonds a year, which is more than just about anyone else in the jewelry business.  One study showed that Blue Nile offered its rings for 35 percent less than a comparable ring at a retail store in the mall.  Sometimes, their purchasing power is so great that they can offer a ring at a price that is less than what a smaller jeweler would pay at wholesale.

Since Blue Nile buys in such large quantities, they have a huge inventory of diamonds.  Looking for a big stone?  They’ve got it.  Want something more modest?  They’ve got plenty of stones like that too.  If you want a diamond cut that is something besides a round brilliant, you’re in luck.  Princess cuts, emerald, asscher, marquis, radiant, pear, cushion… They have them in stock ready to ship to you.

Another thing that Blue Nile has going for it is the fact that when you’re browsing their website, there’s no pressure.  There are some retail stores that use high pressure tactics to try to make a sale.  At these stores, there’s no such thing as casually browsing or taking time to do your research.  At Blue Nile, you can take hours, days or weeks to make a decision when browsing their site.  No salesperson is ever going to pressure you to buy.

The whole buying process at Blue Nile is completely transparent.  You can change the shape of the diamond, its color, cut and clarity and see how the price will change.  Not sure if you can afford a platinum band instead of a white gold one?  With a few clicks of your mouse, you can see how that changes your bottom line.  In a retail store, you’d have to settle for what they had in stock (which of course would be nowhere near Blue Nile’s inventory) and you’d have to wait for the salesperson to search by hand through their inventory.  This is time consuming enough at one store.  Imagine how long it would take if you had to go from store to store, because no one had what you were looking for.

When you buy an engagement ring from Blue Nile, it comes in a lacquered wooden box.  Free FedEx shipping is included with every order.  If you spend less than $500, it ships with two day shipping.  Over $500 and you get free Priority Overnight shipping.  They ship to APO/FPO by free USPS priority mail and international orders ship by free FedEx International priority.

So, taking all of these things into consideration, is Blue Nile a safe bet?  Maybe the best answer comes from their customers.  Blue Nile now sells more engagement rings than Tiffanys, which was formerly the gold standard.  If you visit their site, you can read 70, count em 70 pages of satisfied customer testimonials.  Smart engagement ring shoppers know they can get a high quality ring at a low price by shopping at Blue Nile.

Click here to visit Blue Nile’s website.