From the Mine, to "Will You Be Mine Forever"

Many people have asked about my ring so I thought I would explain where it came from.

I had never been one to think about my dream diamond or wedding growing up. I had gemstone books, a decent rock collection and I loved all the colors and characteristics that made each gem unique. 

In 2012 I visited Montana with my parents. While we were there I fell in love with Montana Sapphires in a jewelry store window. We spoke to the jeweler/miner who explained how they were mined locally and I learned about free form cuts and unique shapes that utilized as much of the rough as possible. From that point on, I knew that if I ever were to get engaged, that I would want it to be a Montana Sapphire.

Over the years I did research on the gemstone. I also followed a variety of mines on social media that were open to the public. I thought, how cool would it be to go with my future partner to mine for my favorite gemstone in my favorite state as part of the process. I wanted to share the experience and make the ring more meaningful, more of a “travel and explore partnership” ring.

I met David in November 2016 on Tinder. Classic, I know but without it, it is very unlikely we would have ever met. Long story short, David is from Kentucky and on our second date he gave me flowers in the form of Four Roses Bourbon and I knew we were meant to be.

Valentine’s day 2018 David surprised me with flights to Missoula, MT. He got us a quick weekend trip at the beginning of mining season. Mining season starts about the week after Memorial day, weather permitting, depending on the mine and ends in early September. 

 I looked up all the mines I could find, there were quite a few gravel mines open to the public across the different regions that you pay for bags or buckets of gravel and go through it in their troughs. I wanted to connect with the miners a bit more so I kept searching. I finally came across a miner on Instagram, @forquest88, Neal of the Lewis and Clark Mine. He has the largest private sapphire mine in the Americas, located on the El Dorado Bar of the Missouri River. I reached out to him to let him know that we would be in town and our interest in meeting him. We wouldn’t have enough time to travel to Phillipsburg and Helena so we made the jump and committed to meeting up with Neal during our visit.

Neal met with us, showed us photos of the mine and talked about what it was like to be a miner. Neal had to head out of town that day so we didn’t have time to head to the mine so he brought us some larger rough stones to take a look at as well as a few bags of gravel if we wanted to purchase. We decided to purchase one blue rough that was around 6 carats as well as the 3 bags of gravel to see if we were lucky. He recommended we wash the gravel at Blaze’s mine, which is where we headed next.

We wandered down the road to @BlazeNGems and let them know what we were trying to do. They were gracious enough to let us use their gravel troughs to go through our gravel. Blaze’s son showed us how to work the gravel, small but quick up and down movements as well as some forward/backward and side/side motions. Sapphires are heavier than the gravel so they settle to the bottom/center. We would then flip the gravel onto a table and if we did it right, the sapphires would be there in the top center. We spent the next couple hours there going through gravel. We brought all of our findings inside and were surprised to find that we had found over 100 carats of sapphire and garnet total. One stone we found was over 6 carats and a beautiful blue (my future center stone).

Once we returned to Charlotte, I began my search for a local cutter. Using mostly Instagram I came across @Gemcuttermatt, Matt Tucker who was local to Charlotte and had some pretty work. He went through our rough and we agreed to have him cut all of our larger stones. They turned out amazing with amazing yields of over 42% for most of the stones and up to 52% on a few. Just as a reference most cutters, especially if you request a certain cut, i.e. brilliant, princess, etc. will get you a 30% yield on the high end. That is how much of the stone you get back after they cut it.

After getting our larger stones back, we spoke to Matt about what to do with the smaller stones. He mentioned he knew of someone reliable that was having smaller stones cut in Sri Lanka. We took the smaller stones that Matt thought were worth cutting and he mailed them off for us to be cut. The reason for having these cut overseas was pricing and low return. Stones under a carat are usually not worth the time or money to cut domestically. By sending 50 stones to Sri Lanka, we paid almost a full month median salary to the cutter, meanwhile being a great discount to us.

Searching for a jeweler was the next step. This was honestly just as hard as finding a cutter or miner, and you would think it was the easier step. A couple things that make it harder, some jewelers that I loved the style of would not work with other people’s stones. They would source their own and not have to worry about the risk of damaging a stone during setting. Similarly, many gem cutters also prefer to cut their own rough because the risk of breaking a gem. A good amount of jewelers claim to do custom work but actually send it off to be done off site, even resizing, many jewelers send that off to be done.

I finally came across a couple local jewelers in Charlotte that do custom design, CAD, casting and setting in house. We decided on @WhitewaterDiamonds in Charlotte, NC. Jason the owner was very friendly, excited to do custom work and is a 3^rd generation jeweler with over 25 years in the industry. The decision was easy after he drew 4 great detailed sketches for us  from multiple perspectives and gave us a very reasonable quote. I had given him some guidance on what I was looking for but he really listened to the things I cared about like profile.

After providing a deposit we kept working through the design to make sure it was exactly what I wanted. Once a design was agreed upon, their CAD designer got to work. We were sent CAD images to take a look at and made a few tweaks to get it just right. From there, it would be cast and set so I stepped out of the process so that the final piece would be a surprise.

Jason was kind enough to let us take a look behind the scenes and show us the tools and how the ring would end up from a chunk of gold and a CAD wax mold and into a finished ring. We have so much appreciation for the work that has to be done my hand to make these one of a kind pieces come to life. 

This is when the hardest part began. The WAIT. David picked up the ring on January 2^nd. After that I wasn’t sure if I had to keep my nails done every day or when a dinner or trip would turn into a proposal. Heads up ladies, if you go this route, this is the hardest part by far!

At this point my friends and colleagues started making bets on when David would pop the question. We had a trip planned to Japan in April and everyone thought that would be the time. They were right! On Saturday April 6^th, 2019 we were taking a photo outside of Himeji Castle during the Cherry Blossom Festival and he asked me to marry him. I said YES of course!

Here are the long awaited images of the completed ring! More to come when I pair it with the band.

Ethically Sourced and Conflict Free are marketing words thrown around a lot these days. I think it is important to ask a lot of questions and see in person as much as you can. Knowing where your stone came from and all the people who touched your stone/ring before it made it onto your finger is magical.