I’ve been thinking of the Tiffany’s ring all week. But seeing the pricey tag – almost £8,500 – I’ve decided to look around. We went to Pravins on Regent Street high street and the saleswoman explained the three important Cs of a diamond – Clarity, Colour, Cut and Carat. For a brief introduction:

Clarity is the clearness or purity of the diamond.

Colour describes the amount of colour the diamond contains: 

Cut refers to the proportion, finish, symmetry and polish of the diamond. 

Carat is the unit weight of a diamond. A carat is further subdivided in 100 points ( 0.01 carat = l point ). One carat is equal to 0.20 grams.  Value per carat increases with carat size, because larger rough diamonds occur less frequently.

One tip is that diamonds are taxed significantly at .5 carat, .75 carat and at 1.0 carat levels. So a diamond that is almost a 1.0 carat, say at .98 carat will be cheaper than a 1.0 carat though this difference is hardly visible to the normal eye. 
One of the rings I liked at Pravins was about £5,000 but I figured that if we were spending so much on a diamond ring, we might as well go for the best and pick the Tiffanys. 

We also visited De Beers and found one oval cut with diamond band at the side (like the Tiffany Novo) for £7,000. My fiance liked that one and said it was very elegant for my tiny fingers but I kept thinking about the Tiffany ring. As I walked out of De Beers, he noticed that I had a frown and he said that if it makes me happy, I should go back to Tiffanys and buy that ring without considering the costs. Am I the luckiest girl or what? He said the most important thing is to make me happy.