[Hondaracer]

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