Brighton Rock

OK, so its been a long blogging break for me, but I couldn't remain away from the bloggosphere after the weekend Andrea and I have just had.

On Friday we went rock shopping!  We've been engaged about a month, but we only managed to get enough time together to get the ring this week.  Having been recommended that we look in Brighton, we trekked down on a lovely warm day to the south coast.

The experience couldn't have been better.  We headed straight for Exclusive Jewellery, owned and run by Sam New, brother of Charlotte, who until recently was working for me.  Sam took us through all the things we could have wished to know about, right from all the different metal options for the mount, to stone settings, and all of the factors going into the grading of diamonds.  I'll never look at a diamond again in the same light!

After a couple of hours (literally!) we stumbled upon a ring that looked really good on Andrea's finger, and were excited about the 'peach' of a diamond as Sam called it that he'd just brought up from the shop store; a very bright white 50 point 1/2 carat round diamond.

Usually time would have been required for a deliberation on whether or not this was the right purchase, but we were both so happy with the experience and the look of the diamond ring now sparling on Andrea's finger that we made the decision there and then.  15 minutes later the ring had been resized and the diamond set, and we were cracking a bottle of bubbly in celebration with Sam.  We left the shop with big grins on our faces, very happy with the new sparkler on Andrea's hand.