I must gush about the guy that made my wedding set. For anyone looking at rings, get a quote on a custom set before you shell out any cash! I always thought anything "custom" would be so much more expensive than anything else, and a pain in the booty on top of that. I was flat out wrong. Here's my story:
My now hubby came to the US for 7 weeks in October/November. We knew we were gonna get hitched, but he hadn't "officially" proposed to me with the ring and all. He came out here with the diamond in-hand and the exact ring/setting in mind that he wanted to get for me, and started trekking around to different jewelers. The ring was pretty specific, a modern tension set white gold ring with matching band - not your normal every day find. He had done research from England and went to some jewelers where he knew they had a similar set. First of all, the cheapest he found the set for, NOT including the center stone was $2000. Not only that, but he wasn't really sold on any of 'em either. Plus, all the major jewelers gave him a hard time because he wasn't going to buy a diamond from them, so they acted like he was a waste of their time. NOT what you want to deal with when shopping for one of the most important buys of your life. Time was getting short and he was running out of options...until...he thought he might as well go to a small family-owned jewelry shop and see if someone could make what he envisioned. He went to a jeweler in Orlando called Aldo's Fine Jewelry and talked to Aldo himself, a cute little guy from Italy. Paul showed him a picture and asked what Aldo could do. Wellllllll - holy smokes, Aldo made the PERFECT ring, custom, in 3 days, for WAY less than half of what the "big" jewelers were quoting. You can see his handiwork here -
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r139/donnamartin12/Ring.jpg. Me and my hubby call him "Aldo the frikkin' jewelry wizard" cause he's AMAZING. I just wanted to share my story in case anyone was looking at rings - go to a hole in the wall jeweler before shelling out your cash at a mainstream jeweler, or check out Aldo - he rocks -
www.aldosfinejewelry.net.
