The wife is a doctor, so I kinda wanted to get her something nice. With a bit of bling. At the time, it was one of the biggest purchases that I had made, second only to my car ($16,000, 2004 Ford Focus).
I ended up doing about 3 months worth of research on diamonds, diamond prices, diamond cuts, in store visits - you name it, I learned about it. I was on the quest to get her the perfect stone. For her, that is.
I got her a 1.05 F VS1 Solasfera diamond, that had perfect proportions, perfect max on Gemex, and a 9.8 on the ISEE2 machine. Plus it has 10 hearts and arrows, not 8. I tell her it's because I love her more.
It came in a simple solitare Tiffany style 18k yellow gold ring with a platinum diamond holder with 6 clasps. Very elegant.
I seem to recall paying 11,750 or so. It was worth it. My annual salary at the time was something along the lines of 60k or so - but I was (and am) a super saver. I don't regret splurging.
As a side note, I would highly recommend checking out the following sites - they were my finalists:
www.goodoldgold.com <-- I purchased my diamond and ring from here, sight unseen, but you'll see why when you visit the site. A beyond excellent site for diamonds.
www.bluenile.com
www.whiteflash.com
And if you want to learn more about diamonds, check out
www.pricescope.com . You can plug in diamond statistics from Blue Nile into here -
http://www.pricescope.com/tools/hca to see if they are good or not.
It's all about the cut. Don't skimp on the cut. Just sayin'.