Hum. Embarrassing question on a sponsored site. Where the sponsor by the way entirely fits your requirements: reliable and trustworthy, with beautiful pieces in stock.

Not sure what else to say, except to give David a ring, and see how you get on.

Good luck!

Hello DA and welcome!

I got into diamonds when my now husband proposed.  he researched and researched, and ended up going with a prominent online diamond retailer.  he chose a beautiful setting and a very high end diamond - .81 carat, D, VS1, ex cut, ex polish, ex symmetry, med blue fluorescence round brilliant cut diamond knowing only it's statistics and never seeing an actual picture of it.  you can see the ring with it's matching wedding band in my avatar. 

The ring arrived, but the craftsmanship was appalling, the prongs were bent and scratchy, the halo was also very bent and one of the pave diamonds was too small for the setting and looked invisible, the day after he proposed and i got my ring, we had to send it back to have them fix it. we had to pay the shipping cost, AND i was without my ring for 2 weeks.  my sweetheart was so disappointed.  though this retailer is VERY well known with a great reputation their jewelers are clearly not the best.  i think they thrive on volume and that is why my ring was so mangled.  also, at about one year old one of the pave diamonds nearly fell out and i had to take it to a local jeweler to get it fixed.

now, i love my ER, but if my hubby had found the Diamonds by Lauren website, he would have DEFINITELY gone with them over the other.  I have been looking at David's products and forum for a long time now, and though I haven't yet gotten the opportunity to purchase anything, I can say without a doubt, that I would trust him with any purchase, large or small. 

We got lucky with my diamond, i love it and it is beautiful, but it was not hand picked like all the stones you'll find here.
that's my two cents, hope it helps.

The internet can be a scary place to do business.  We all know and have shared the horror stories.  Rest assured that this site sets the standard of how business should be conducted.
If you browse around this site, and watch the posts in this forum you will see what I mean.

Rio

davisallison- I forgot to mention how happy I am you posted!
WELCOME!!
I, and a lot of others around here- are totaly fascinated by diamonds!

If you wanted to tell us what type of diamond you like, we might at least be able to show you what we have so you'd have something to compare it to.

As a sponsored site we don't want to recommend, or knock any other sellers.

Short of that, I'd be more than happy to offer you a tradesperson viewpoint on prices of any diamond- in other words, what you might expect to pay, even if you shop elsewhere.

Other cdi members would likely add great value to that type of conversation as well.

At the end of the day, I'd be really happy of you found the site useful, and enjoyed it.

Good advice!
Here's a great place to start if you want to see what previous and returning customers think:

http://www.ivouch.com/tr.cgi?t=929


Jen