Over the last few months, since the engagement of William and Kate was announced, I've been seeing increased interest in sapphire engagement rings (just see my last two blog posts).
While sapphire has always been a popular engagement ring choice, and one of my personal favourites (I proposed to my wife with a sapphire engagement ring), diamond has been the more traditional stone used over the last few decades. However, jewellers saw an increase in sapphire interest when Charles and Diana got engaged in '81, and we're seeing that spike in interest again now that Kate Middleton is wearing the sapphire ring.
Sapphires are an excellent choice for engagement rings for many reasons, they refract light very well making them sparkly, and they have a Mohs hardness of 9
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness), making them very tough and resistant to breaking, chipping and scratching.
Sapphires also come in many different colours, hues and saturations, with the most spectacular being blue, pink and yellow. While natural coloured diamonds are also found, they are roughly 100 times the price of a similar sized sapphire. And when compared to white diamonds sapphires cost about 75% less. This allows a customer to save a bit of money or get a bigger stone... often they decide to do a bit of both!
And if you still like the idea of having diamonds as part of your engagement ring, not to worry, sapphires look amazing when paired with white diamond accents. Just check out some of the pictures of sapphire rings that I have made over the last couple of months. Gorgeous... if I do say so myself.
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