We firmly believe in only buying certified diamond rings, but we’re just as clear that you shouldn’t get too attached to the numbers on a certificate. We often have customers arrive who are convinced that they need to buy a particular carat weight or grade, only to be needlessly disappointed by what their diamond ring budget can stretch to.
Making your budget go further is about knowing where your investment can genuinely improve the ring and where you’d struggle to notice the difference without a jeweller’s loupe in your hand.
At Hatton Garden Diamond we’d much rather help you to find a beautiful diamond that makes sense for your budget than sell you a higher grade because it ‘looks better’ on paper. In fact, there are plenty of ways to be clever with your budget, some of which we share in the article below.
Start with Your Diamond Ring Budget, not a Carat Number
You might already have a fixed number in-mind before you go shopping for diamond rings, and for many of our clients, that’s the goal of a one-carat diamond. There’s nothing wrong with having an idea of size, but we really we wouldn’t recommend building your whole search around hitting a particular carat weight. A one-carat diamond isn’t automatically going to look better on your hand than one that weighs slightly less.
It’s much more useful if you can tell us what you’d prefer to spend on the finished ring; from there, we can start exploring realistic options. If having a larger centre stone is important to you, we can look at where you could adjust the colour or clarity without seeing an obvious difference. If you’ve fallen in love with a particular setting, we can work backwards and find a diamond that leaves enough room in the budget for it.
Don’t feel awkward about telling your jeweller your budget either; we’re not asking because we want to push you towards the top of it. It simply saves you from looking at diamonds that aren’t suitable and gives us something useful to work with.
Don’t Sacrifice a Beautiful Cut for a Bigger Carat Weight
If we had to steer you away from compromising too much on one of the 4Cs (cut, clarity, colour and carat), it would be the cut. A carat is simply a measure of weight, whereas the quality of the cut has a huge influence on the amount of sparkle that you’ll see when you look at the diamond. Get the proportions right and the diamond will return light beautifully, which is what gives it the brightness that people are usually looking for in the first place.
You Don’t Need the Highest Colour and Clarity Grades
Colour and clarity are where our clients can save some money on diamond rings, without feeling as though they’ve compromised on their diamond. There’s a certain satisfaction in seeing a very high grade on the certificate, but there’s very little point in paying hundreds of pounds more for an ‘improvement’ that no-one can actually tell is there.
With clarity, we’ll look for a diamond that’s ‘eye-clean’, meaning that you can’t readily see its inclusions with the naked eye. The grade on paper might not be as high as another stone you’re considering, yet when we put the two in front of you, you’ll struggle to tell them apart.
Colour is a similar story; you don’t need to pay for a completely colourless diamond to have a stone that looks beautifully white once set. The metal that you choose for the ring can make a difference here too, which is why we’d rather consider the diamond and setting together than automatically tell you to buy the highest colour grade that you can afford.
If you’re torn between two grades, ask us to put the diamonds side by side. If you can’t see the difference, you can then decide whether that higher grade is really where you want your extra money to go.
Choose a Diamond Shape That Gives You More Visual Impact
If you love the look of a larger stone, this gives us another way to play with your budget. Elongated shapes such as oval, pear and marquise diamonds tend to spread their weight differently and can look larger from above than some other shapes at a similar carat weight.
We’d never suggest choosing a shape purely because it gives you a little more visual size, though. You’re hopefully going to be looking at this Hatton Garden diamond ring for decades, so loving the shape matters far more than squeezing every possible millimetre out of your budget. We love to see clients try a few on when they visit us; it’s quite common for the diamond that a client loves on their hand to be completely different from the one that they had saved on their phone.
Consider What a Lab Grown Diamond Could Do for Your Budget
If you’ve shown us the size and quality of a diamond that you love, only to find that the natural version takes you beyond the budget you had in mind, we suggest having a look at lab grown and natural diamonds side by side.
A lab grown diamond is still a real diamond, with the same chemical and physical properties as a natural one. The big difference for your budget is that a comparable lab grown stone will cost less, sometimes by up to 90%. This might mean that you can afford the larger centre stone you had your heart set on, or that you have more room in the budget for the setting and design.
We don’t think there’s a right answer to the natural versus lab grown question. We have customers looking for a diamond ring in Hatton Garden who wouldn’t consider anything other than a natural diamond. We also meet a great deal who see a lab grown stone as an opportunity to get much closer to their dream engagement ring without spending more than they’re comfortable with. If you’re undecided, come and look at both. Once you know what each option gives you for your budget, the decision usually becomes much easier.
The Ring Details That You’ll Actually Notice
It’s easy to spend your time thinking about the centre diamond and treat the setting as something to decide afterwards. We prefer to look at the ring as a whole; the way that we set a diamond can completely change its character. If you love plenty of sparkle and want the ring to have a little more presence on your hand, then a halo of smaller diamonds around the centre stone can often create that effect without all of the carat weight needing to come from one diamond.
This is one of the reasons that a bespoke diamond ring from Hatton Garden doesn’t necessarily mean spending more. It gives us the freedom to start with your budget and decide together where it’s going to have the most impact.
Let Us Show You What Your Diamond Ring Budget Can Achieve
The best way to find out what your budget can achieve is to come in and see our range of diamond rings for yourself. Book an appointment and we’ll show you some beautiful options, within your budget, that can be treasured for a lifetime.