Engagement Rings Guide

Education & Buying Tips

So, you are approaching the most critical moment in your life. At least, that’s what you believe at the moment. Recently, you made a decision and ready for the adornment that will connect the loving couple and will remove all your old buddies from the sofa in your living room as well. Well, it looks like it’s time to get straight to business—engagement rings. There are dozens of engagement ring names, types, and styles. It will mix all of them into a salad in the head of a regular person. That’s not what I want. So let me help you avoid this headache. We’ll make it simple. I promise. Let’s dismount this salad apart.

First of all, we can divide engagement rings into two types:
Solitaire and Side Stones ring.
Solitaire comes from the Latin “Solitarius” and means “alone,” so as you can imagine to yourself, the solitaire ring means a single diamond or single gemstone ring.
The rest of the rings that come with side stones are called “side stones rings.”

It’s easy, isn’t it?

Let’s move forward - the shapes of the ring. Well, I believe no explanations are necessary. Strait, tapered, reverse tapered, pinched, flair, bypass. The image speaks by itself better of all.
The rest of the terminology describes the setting for center and side stones.

Straight

Tapered

Reverse Tapered

Pinched

Flair

Bypass

Center stone settings

Classic or Prong setting is the most common setting for an engagement ring. When you hear about the Tiffany ring, it means the same classic prong setting. The prongs are forming a kind of a basket that secures the stone.

Classic

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cathedral

Looking at the cathedral setting, you see arches rising the stone above the ring. If you wonder why we call it a Cathedral, look at cathedral church arches, raising the church's sealing up to the sky. People say that the cathedral ring has to raise their love to the heavens.

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tension

The diamond is secured by the tension of two open ends of the spring-loaded ring, with tiny grooves to hold the stone. It makes the diamond look like floating in the air without visible support. The tension setting is not resizable!

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bezel setting ring

It’s one of the most ancient types of settings. The diamond is secured by a metal rim, elevated, and overlapped over the stone's edges as a part of the mounting. The diamond is almost “hidden” inside the ring, and only the upper part of the stone remains visible.

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bar setting ring

The diamond is secured by pressure between two bars, connected to the ring, and creates the look of a floating diamond similar to a tension setting. Tiny grooves made in the bar help holding the diamond in place.

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Flush Ring

The flush setting means small diamonds spread along the surface of the ring. Each one of the diamonds is “hidden” inside the mounting. Only the crown – the upper facets of the diamond remain open. It’s a relatively rare type of setting.

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Side stone settings

Pave

Pave means the pavement. We pave the ring's surface with small diamonds and create the look of brilliance and scintillation, the play of light and color.

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channel setting

Non-prongs setting. The diamonds are secured inside the rails between two parallel walls of the channel. Side to side diamonds setting create a continuous diamond look at the ring.

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bar channel setting

Each one of the diamonds is secured inside special grooves between two bars. The bottom part of the diamonds -pavilion may remain open, creating a floating effect, or can be hidden in the grooved “basket.”

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Flush side setting

The flush setting means small diamonds spread along the surface of the ring. Each of the diamonds is “hidden” inside the mounting, only the crown – the upper facets remain open. It’s a relatively rare type of setting.

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Shared prongs setting

The shared prongs setting is similar to the classic setting - each one of the small diamonds held by four prongs to secure the stones. Open diamond receives more light that increases its brilliance and scintillation.

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French setting

Small diamonds are placed in specially grooved holes and secured by metal cut between the stones. Catted metal moves to the diamonds, securing them at their places. It is a very popular side stone setting technics.

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Invisible Settings

The invisible setting means special grooves curved with the laser on the bottom part of the stones and secured by special metal rails on the ring. It creates the look of a solid diamond surface. It is a costly and complicated type of setting.

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Cluster setting Engagement ring

The cluster setting is not about a particular setting. It means that small diamonds, set side by side, create the illusion of one big center stone diamond as close as possible. Unlike the invisible setting, we use regular shape diamonds for cluster setting.

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Illusion setting

An illusion setting is similar to a Cluster setting. The purpose of it is to create the look or illusion of a bigger diamond. But in this case, standard shape diamonds can’t be used. Center part of the diamonds set with “invisible” and the external part with prong or bezel setting

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Talking about the following three settings that you can meet, making your engagement ring research, we are not talking about the settings technics. It’s about a particular design that marketers call “settings.” If you take a closer look, you’ll see no special setting technics applied in the following rings. It might confuse a regular person, but not you. You already know what it means.