5 Tips for Designing the Perfect Custom Engagement Ring

Melissa Tyson Designs – The LAW Bridal – Claire Eliza – Bridal Musings – Christina Castello – Oregon Coast Wedding 24

Photo by Claire Eliza & Pearl Ring by Rings by Melissa Tyson Designs

Photo by Claire Eliza of Melissa Tyson Designs via Bridal Musings

We imagine a lot of soon-to-be-grooms & soon-to-be-brides consider embarking on the custom engagement ring route. After all, custom rings are one-of-a-kind, just like your love! But unless you’re design-minded yourself, the task of creating something gorgeous & professional that your SO will love might seem daunting.

The truth is, it’s really not that complicated to come up with the perfect, personalized ring. All you need is a few tips (we’re sharing below) and to work with an expert jeweler like Melissa!

Melissa Tyson Design‘s unique collection of sparkling diamonds, colorful gemstones, recycled gold & alt-bride vibes has captivated us for quite a long time. But it’s not just her “Iconic Melissa” designs that keep us scrolling her feed (I wear the Moroccan Marquise, myself!). Melissa is a master at creating custom jewelry pieces, both from sparkling new diamonds & gems and updating family-heirloom jewelry to be worn in the modern age.

Since we know so many of you are often trying to crack the code on how to even get started on designing a custom ring, we’ve asked Melissa to share her expert tips…

Photo by Claire Eliza

1. Do Reconnaissance (AKA Time for Some Sneaky Research)

If it’s a surprise, you’ll want to start your custom design process with a little sneaky research about what your future fiance already loves. How do you do that?

Check Her/His Pinterest: If your SO has ever saved any engagement ring favorites, chances are they’re saved on Pinterest. Take a scroll through their boards & pins to see if any rings are saved. If you don’t know if they have an account, Google their other social media handles with the word ‘Pinterest’, it might come up as the same name!

No Pinterest Account? Melissa offers more ways to determine your SO’s ring style: “We ask you to send adjectives to describe your significant other, what their Instagram handle is and to send us pictures of their jewelry box. All of these things help us to hone in on their style and create the perfect custom engagement ring to match their unique personality!”

2. Start Culling Inspiration

Whether you’re keeping the ring a surprise or designing the piece together as a couple, you’ll want to pull together some inspiration of what you (or your loved one) likes.

Continuing from the tip above, Pinterest is a fabulous place to brainstorm. Search engagement rings, browse certain gemstones, colors & styles you like and save them to a dedicated Pinterest board that you can share with your designer.

Melissa says, “Creating a Pinterest board makes it very easy for us to look and see the common design threads. Seeing all of your favorite rings makes a great launching pad for designing! For instance, if we notice each ring is hammered, lots of ovals and on a budget, we’d say an Oval Moissanite in a hammered recycled gold setting! If you do a bit of homework beforehand the process goes really smoothly.”

Photo by Claire Eliza of Melissa Tyson Designs via Bridal Musings

3. Go Try Rings on In-Person

Even if you’re designing with a favorite artist virtually, you can help your designer by testing some other ring styles, sizes & stones at your local jewelry store.

Melissa says, “I tell people to swing by their local Zales or Kay jewelry store (even if that’s not your style) just try things on. It’s very helpful to help determine which width of band you like on your finger and what color of the gold you like against your skin tone. You’ll also see which shape and size work best, what carat weight of the diamond you prefer or you might even fall for a Salt & Pepper Diamond, Moissanite, Sapphire…or another gemstone of choice!

When you’re shopping online it will make the virtual shopping and custom design process a lot smoother if you have a little bit of your homework done before the process begins. We design engagement rings for clients all across the United States and internationally and 75% of our clients we’ve designed for are completely virtual, many times without even having a phone conversation! All the design magic happens through sketches, photos, and videos via email.”

4. Think Outside The Box

If you’re planning to design a custom engagement ring, you might as well make it unique! Don’t limit yourself to the basic diamond settings you see at big jewelry stores. There are so many different precious gemstones & even colors of diamonds to choose from in the world! Given the incredible array of styles, stones & unique hammering she gives to her gold bands, we asked Melissa what her favorite materials are to work with:

“Well, of course, I love ethically sourced Diamonds. They are so timeless and my favorite thing about them is that when you hold them up to the sun they reflect rainbows around the room!

Salt & Pepper Diamonds may possibly be my favorite. They’re so unique and each one of them looks like it has a tiny painting inside. I just love them. There are so many colors of diamonds most people don’t know about, Gray, Yellow, Red, Champagne, Cognac. They are all magical!

And, Rutilated Quartz is probably my next favorite gemstone, they have tiny golden or black threads inside and each stone is one-of-a-kind!”

5. Plan Ahead

Planning a holiday proposal? Now’s the time to get in touch with a designer. With so many like-minded lovebirds, designers get stacked up with custom designs and inquiries.

At Bridal Musings, we love being able to recommend not only our favorite designers & vendors but particularly those who we’ve worked with personally. I can’t rave more about how amazing Melissa is to work with. Her style is so uniquely her own, and she takes such great care to make sure your piece is stunning, personal & one-of-a-kind.

Her custom design process typically starts with filling out a form on her website and booking a free design consultation phone call to hone in on the design details. From that point, most everything is done virtually, with sketches, diamond (or gemstone) selection, and then the custom building of the ring. The entire process – start to finish – is about 6 to 8 weeks.

Additionally, Melissa just launched an exciting new feature called Create Your Own Ring that streamlines the process. Using this platform you can select your own Salt & Pepper Diamond, choose the color of gold you want, select the ring setting style and checkout with your dream ring!

Browse Melissa’s incredible collection to start brainstorming the perfect engagement ring. Need more inspiration? Follow our Engagement Ring & Gemstone Pinterest boards.