Your engagement ring is something that you will wear and cherish forever.  It will carry years of memories and happiness while also being a symbol of your commitment to your spouse.  So how can you possibly choose the right engagement ring?  As long as your educated, you will be fine when looking for your beautiful symbol of love.

Traditionally, the man would select a beautiful engagement ring and propose to his love on one knee with the ring in hand.  Nowadays, couples prefer to search for and select engagement rings together.  This makes more sense because of the price of the ring and sentimental value for a lifetime.  Now men will usually propose with a simple ring or promise necklace and then the couple will search for an engagement ring together.

The most common trend among the millions of differing designs of engagement rings is the glorious diamond that sits atop a woman’s finger.  In order to buy a diamond, you should be versed in the well-known four C’s of diamonds: Cut, Color, Clarity, and Carats.  This is extremely important and should be discussed with your partner prior to shopping around for the perfect diamond engagement ring.

Cut - This is the way the jeweler has carved the diamond.  It has a direct impact on the beauty of the ring and the ability of the diamond to shine and sparkle.  As you search for engagement rings, you will see a wide array of cuts ranging from round to pear to heart shaped.  Make sure that you pay close attention to how the diamond sparkles under a light in order to find the right cut for you.  Finding the right diamond cut is simply personal preference.

Color - For the most part, the clearer the diamond, the more expensive it is.  Clear diamonds are said to be perfect, thus are the most expensive.  However, colored diamonds, such as pink and black, have increased in popularity due to their originality amongst engagement rings.  Sometimes an upcoming trend in engagement jewelry can increase the price of it simply because it’s more popular.

Clarity - Diamonds are stones, therefore every diamond possesses imperfections in it’s structure.  Many of these imperfections are invisible to the common naked eye, but can be pin-pointed by a jeweler.  For this reason, prices are marked up on perfect diamonds with no errors in their crystalline structure.  The grading systems for these imperfections go from “FL” (flawless) all the way down to “I3″ (most imperfections).  Generally, anything from a VS2 grade and higher can’t be seen by the naked eye.

Carats - The size of the diamond has the biggest impact on price.  The metric carat is 0.20 grams, thus indicating the weight of the diamond which is directly proportional to its size.  For this reason, women often want larger diamonds on their engagement rings.  However, larger diamonds don’t necessarilly indicate a more beautiful ring.  Women with slender, long fingers should go with a smaller carat size simply because larger diamonds may look gaudy on their delicate fingers.  Although size does matter, the quality of the diamond is important too and your budget should balance both aspects.

Finding your perfect, beautiful engagement ring can be a daunting task, but now at least your educated on how to find the right diamond for you.  Look around online and in several stores to find your perfect ring style before you select one.  Remember, this is no ordinary piece of jewelry, you will be wearing it for the rest of your life.  Go find your beauttiful diamond engagement ring!