This thread was great info, thanks for everyone who provided!

I spent approx 8-10 hours of research learning about diamonds before going into local stores just to get their "crash course" in diamonds

I also went to the surrey location for the diamonddeals.com and looked at a few of their pre-set rings.

Typically what I learned locally, and even at the diamond deals place is they really try and push non-gia diamonds. And with a little bit of research it's clear that anything but GIA is not up to par with the GIA grading. You may be able to snag a great deal if you REALLY know what you're looking for, but now that I have my ring from bluenile, it's not even close.

BlueNile was not only the best option for the ring, it was one of the best online shopping and retail experiences I've ever had, period. It was that good of an experiance.

After looking at about 10 local places including Costco etc I ended up with bluenile

As the OP said I believe, I spent about 6 hours going through GIA certs, and upon further reading regarding the setting/band I ended up with a designer label platinum solitaire setting.

Pushed my budget to just slightly over what I wanted but the end product was -amazing-

Ended up with a .64, ideal cut, VVS2, I color, excellent polish, excellent symmetry, no fluorescence.

Was delivered the morning after it shipped and worked out perfectly for me. The "fire" of the diamond is night and day from anything I ever saw in store, like infinitely nicer.

+10000000% for bluenile. I will recommend it to anyone and everyone looking for a diamond and in the end, I felt like I really did get sooo much more buying from them than anything locally

Was just coming here to ask about blue Nile an have my answer thanks.

For those looking, don't forget to look at custom options. Where you get to design the whole ring and choose your diamonds yourself. There are a bunch of options in Vancouver for this, and they are under the radar. It's a much more economical and personal experience as you are able to control the entire aspect of the creation process.

if you visit local stores, ask to see a diamond that has the hearts and arrow feature. its pretty neat.

Looked at a nice .5 carat at Ben Moss had the hearts and arrows cut. It is currently my first choice if I buy local...the ring had me mesmerized lol

Well ... it's definitely time and I want to surprise my GF in the next year. Our situation is a lot different than a lot of the youngsters that go through the ring process because we already own two properties together. Thus, our comprehension of financial responsibility and fiscal priority is a little different, meaning a $10k ring simply doesn't make sense. That said - I want to make sure that she gets the "experience" and for that I'm willing to carve out some space in my personal income to make this happen.

I'm always for shopping locally and supporting brick-and-mortar but this is one industry where it simply seems beneficial to shop online. Anything purchased locally comes with costs; SG&A and commission costs are passed onto the consumer and those two things are immediately saved by shopping online.

This thread has been useful just to read other people's experiences.

^I'm in a similar situation and decided to go with an amora gem ultra (bought online) and will be getting it set locally.

Not sure how everyone feels about diamond simulants, but the amora gem ultra is relatively new to market (2013?) and is better quality than moissanite, asha, cz. I honestly can't tell the difference between a real diamond and what I bought so chances are my GF won't either. But you should probably find out from her if she's ok with a simulant before going this route.

I paid $1500CAD including taxes and shipping for a 1.03ct, D color, internally flawless amora gem ultra hearts and arrows, which is a fraction of what a diamond would have cost with those specs. That said, critics will always argue that a diamond will always have re-sale value vs diamond simulants which probably don't have any.

Personally, this was an easy choice for me because of our financial priorities and bias against the diamond industry, but I wanted to give my GF something that looks the part.

Something to consider? Good luck!

^^ curious where you ordered from.

Feel free to PM me if you don't want to reply in here

Tks

^ same!

I'm finally getting around to looking at rings, willing to spend about 4k on the diamond itself, another grand or so on the band.

I've been looking at diamonds around 0.6-0.65 ct with very good cut and clarity, and also bigger 0.75 ct with decent cut and clarity but obviously not as good.

Is there even a big enough difference in those sizes to sacrifice some cut and clarity? Should I be concerned at all about fluorescence?

not really unless you are going for like 1 to 1.5 ct.

Go look at the sizes in store somewhere and compare

Personally I "felt" that I could see the difference between a .5 and a .65 in store

Also re: the flouressence, it seems like it's one of the largely debated issues compared to the 4 C's when it comes to diamonds. I've read plenty of people who are seemingly in the know who say stay away from -any- flouressence, while others say it really doesn't matter.

I aired on the side of caution and went with the diamond which had none, and like I said in the bright light it's amazing

try Diamond.ca | Canadian Diamonds Vancover owners name is Rand, i ended up buying from there

It seems like I can get a .75 without fluorescence, ideal cut, VS1, H colour around my budget think that might be the way to go over something smaller but a better colour

I'll go check out the difference in store first

I'm also looking within the next few months. I'm set on at least 1 ct, but that being said I'm putting most of my money into my ring and honeymoon. Why spent 10s of thousands on other people haha.

How much are you guys spending?!

I'm looking through these posts and when you say budget and I hear stuff like 1.0+ ct I just can't imagine where you're starting your budget at.

It all depends

A non-gia, relatively shitty diamond at 1 ct can be had for under 4500-5000 no problem.

GIA with any sort of decent quality at 1 ct is going to be 6000+ minimum

If I can keep it at $10k I will be happy, but I'm going to brinkhaus for my ring, so might go up.

that's where i got mine too

Since the CND dollar has gone to shit, will that affect the pricing for diamonds from BlueNile since its US Based?

^ i feel like it has. my friend just priced out her ring and it came out to being about 2k more.

Can't you just plastidip a normal one to make it into a black diamond?

when you start off, for me at least, everything was in CAD right off the bat

doesnt say that it doesnt effect the cost overall, as reflected in the diamonds though, so hard to tell

when i bought my ring off bluenile, i just changed the my location to the states and just did the conversion, it was around .79cents when the cnd dollar was .70cents. so not too bad