In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Let's Talk with Ring Buyers (Part 4)
Michael's childhood friend, Taylor, shares his journey of designing a custom engagement ring with a lab-grown sapphire centerpiece, highlighting the collaborative decision-making process with his fiancée Jen who had a clear vision from the start.
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Welcome to In the Loop a year and a half or so and I wanted to bring it back to talk with one of my best friends, my childhood friend, taylor, and he recently just got engaged and it's just an in-person interview, which is really cool for me, but I wanted to hear about his process of building a custom ring and also choosing a sapphire lab-grown stone for the center and what he went into and thought about when it came to building and designing a custom ring. It's really cool and I think it's very important for jewelers to sometimes hear an unbiased approach to what goes through typically a guy's head when it goes into buying an engagement ring. You know they're not always caring about clarity and color. Sometimes they just want something that their fiance will love and I think that you can hear it in his words that he cared about how this turned out. But what mattered is sometimes what you know gets overlooked sometimes by jewelers and I think that these are really interesting kind of user interviews that I think gives us insight into the buying process for a customer.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoy. Let me know if you want me to do more of these, All right, enjoy.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show. What is up everybody? I'm joined by my buddy, taylor. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:today, Tay Doing pretty well. Mike, Good to be hanging with you this morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Tay is actually. This is an in-person podcast recording and I don't have a ton of these. I usually am doing stuff through Zoom so people can't see my legs very often. It's more like upper body. But I really wanted to bring you on and talk about your ring buying process. So we have this recurring series called let's Talk with Ring Buyers and I've done all sorts of different processes, so custom design projects and Etsy purchases and you know traditional engagements and I've even had my brother on and yours was super cool because yours was like a slightly different experience. Can you tell me about it a little bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, kind of right off the top, I think one of the things that made our experience different from a lot of my friends is that my fiance, really, you know she had a vision and drove a lot of the process. So, you know, talking to a lot of friends, I find that people usually kind of, you know, usually the guy, the, the guy in the relationship, has the uh, the idea of what his ring should look like and what he wants to give us that gift. And our experience was not, you know, like that right, Jen kind of came up to me and communicated, uh, pretty strongly, with a full Pinterest board and all of that, Like these are the styles. I like you know this is the kind of stone I want to see. I like you know this is the kind of stone I want to see, Um, and so she really had, you know, she had the mental model of what she wanted and then kind of gave me the last finishing touch, uh, decisions to to make on that.
Speaker 1:So when you're explaining that to me the first time, I was saying it's almost like two different schools of approach. Where you're talking to, uh, someone could see it as like, oh, I'm going to make all the decisions, because then the ring is like almost like a gift of mine, it's a unique uh, I had described it as macaroni art. It's like, oh, like you made this and it comes with a piece of you, right? But then there's another school of approach where it's like the person who's going to be wearing, uh, this should be the one making a lot of decisions and should be the one, like, tailoring it to their style, but she really knew what she wanted, which is also really cool. You know, yeah, 100.
Speaker 3:and you know, we, we had talked about what, um, what we might want in a ring, how we might want to do that communication, probably as far as a yeah, I would would say a year before the actual proposal. So timeline there, right, so it's 2025. We got engaged in February of this year. We probably opened that conversation in winter of 24. And so the ring was starting to get produced in the summer and ultimately I didn't end up using it for a few months after that. But, yeah, kind of from the get, jen really let me know what she was interested in and then we kind of, you know, we took a step back a little bit you know, because we weren't quite ready to do the thing yet.
Speaker 3:But yeah, she very much was directive on. These are the things I'm really passionate about.
Speaker 1:These are the things I don't like, so let's talk about what the ring actually looks like, because people are going to be listening. They're retail jewelers, so retailers. One thing I've learned about jewelers jewelers love talking about jewelry. They do this checks out. And so tell me, do you know the specs? Yeah, what was the? What was the center stone?
Speaker 3:Center stone is a, so it's a lab sapphire. We were kind of going for like a, like a purplish kind of blue, right, we wanted a bit of that, a bit of that hue to it. It's got a nice like. It kind of comes down to a a pretty deep point, uh, rectangular shape, more or less obviously rounded um edges. I don't want to say it's like I don't know, it's like seven or eight, uh, mil millimeters, something like that, but it's rectangular shape, so I forget the exact specs on it. And and then what I really like most about it is the side profile. So it has this kind of swooping, almost like a water splash shape to it and it makes this really nice cross shape, oh cool. So that's gorgeous and it's set in platinum.
Speaker 3:And we also kind of had this back and forth too, around like, uh, what types of side stones, if any side stones? And we realized it was just with the stone by itself it was going to be a little bit uh, imbalanced like it. Just, you looked at it and you're kind of wanting for something. Right, there's room, room to kind of uh finish it, I guess, uh. And so we we kind of went through the cycle of like do we want circles, do we want teardrops, do we want, like, little biscuits, like what type of?
Speaker 3:and ultimately we, just we went to a jeweler and tried like just put the stone in the middle on this little fake setting and then just tried putting the others you know they had samples yeah, putting these little stones on the side until we kind of had the uh, the ring, yeah so walking back for a second.
Speaker 1:So you're first of all, for people listening. This is why I do these interviews. They're so fascinating because you go the side stones are they going to be circles or teardrops or biscuits? Sometimes I think that jewelers I have this kind of thesis that jewelers are, like I said, love talking about jewelry and sometimes they get too caught up in the sauce where they think that people like are like in the nitty gritty about you know the, the florescence and the and the inclusions and stuff like that. But then when you realize that they're calling you know baguette shaped biscuits and they, you know pear shapes, there's teardrops. It's like, oh, like. Maybe we should be focusing on like, what it looks like and not necessarily like these. You know arbitrary numbers and names, that like we know so well.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, yeah, yeah definitely, and actually to that point too, like another uh, I forget the term you used, but another thing that we definitely did look at was, uh, for the side stones, the, I would say, like the brightness, right, how much, like, how much light do they give off? How much of a twinkle do they have, because they're kind of pulling? They have the potential to pull, uh, attention away from the mainstone. So I think we intentionally wanted them to be, I guess, dumbed down a little bit so that you, the focus would stay on the mainstone was just by its shape has this like from the top profile, it kind of comes into a point that's you wanted that to be where your attention goes.
Speaker 3:So why did you guys choose?
Speaker 3:platinum um, I mean, ultimately that's uh, why did jen choose correct question? Uh, I don't know. I think I think it was because, like properties of the metal, I think you know we we do a lot, of, a lot of outdoor activities, uh, and know that gold can get a little bit banged up. So I think, as I understand it, just it's a little more resilient, but the color also just really suits it, the stone well, it complements it super well. It just wouldn't have made sense with the gold, certainly not like a typical gold, and then you kind of go through some of the other options around there and it really just looked the best, I guess, like I can't really put anything more to it than that.
Speaker 1:So you go and you buy this. You go to buy this ring. Did you buy anything along with it? So did you buy. Did you buy insurance or warranty?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, so we are in the process of trying to do so, but one of the things that we're finding is so we need to get the ring resized, oh, um, and for the insurance which this is crazy to me uh, we need to have an appraisal of the ring. Now, what's crazy to me about this is that we, to get that appraisal, we bring the ring into the shop that we just bought it from, who charged us some sum of money, yeah, so, um, it feels to me like a little bit out of order of like yeah, why is the ring not appraised when you sold it to me, like why don't you?
Speaker 3:have, uh, you, I should just be able to ask you this number, or it should just be on the receipt right on my bill of sale. Right, I have paperwork for this ring, uh but, yeah, so we we have not yet done that.
Speaker 3:Uh, we do need to do that, but I think partially because jen has, uh, some like bachelorette trips and things like that this year that she's trying to time resizing her ring and everything so that she will have her ring for those events. Um, but yeah, it's that to me was just like I was super taken aback. Yeah, it feels like I should be able to just like share the receipt with the insurer. And well, that's the price you paid for a new item, so that's what the item is worth. Isn't that how it works without any other good?
Speaker 1:so I think the people listening right now probably have like tons of opinions on that, one of the things that I have always wondered about. So when you were buying this, did they offer you anything else? Did they offer you a deal on wedding bands, or did they offer you a deal on hey, here's a coupon for groomsmen gifts, or here's a coupon for cufflinks or something like that Gifts for guys, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think that they really strongly recommended anything like that. Ultimately, like we were working with a place that seemed to specialize in, uh, in wedding rings, uh, so we we worked with a jeweler. I live in Portsmouth, new Hampshire. We worked with a jeweler um in town there, so it was, it was, it was, you know, 15 minutes walk from our apartment to be able to go in and see that spot and we shopped around a little bit. Um, ultimately we went. We kind of went based on the like, just the vibes of the staff, like the people who we were working with primarily and vibes are important.
Speaker 3:We had we had one shop that we went into and they had, like they had exactly what we were looking for with very subtle you know we custom built the ring or got it, you know, commissioned and they had great samples at this other shop we went to but ultimately the person that we were working with just didn't give us like the best impressions. I was like okay with it, but Jen was like I didn't like that conversation, I don't want to go back to this shop.
Speaker 3:And at the end of the day that was a really big factor for us, for kind of who we worked with, but no, I don't really remember them giving us anything like you know, diamond cufflinks or whatever, anything like that.
Speaker 1:But I sometimes think it's a missed opportunity because it's like so to give you an idea People listening already know this but to catch you up to speed. So engagement rings a lot of times are considered like this really important touch point in building a relationship with a customer. They buy this really big deal item and then you try to link them, uh, hook them in for more um purchases. So whether that's uh, getting a set of wedding bands or getting uh cleanings or getting consigning or like, yeah, you know, lending uh jewelry for the for the wedding or it's, you know, bridal gifts or groomsmen gifts or things like that, yeah, and they are uh, a lot of jewelers see like getting the engagement ring.
Speaker 1:Obviously it's such a big purchase and just in dollars amount, but the engagement rings run the jewelry industry as like a you know more or less. It's like kind of the pinnacle and like the most important key point. But I guess at the same time I want to talk about you go and you custom design this thing, yeah. So what was the steps along the way? Did they give you like a wax model? Did they let you like pick up, like what the? Or a 3D printed CAD or something like that.
Speaker 3:So I believe they it's been a bit so I'm not exactly remembering, I believe they gave us so definitely did everything in CAD.
Speaker 3:So we, you know, we flipped through books, we found sort of sample references for the mostly the shape of what the platinum band ended up being Because, like I mentioned, it has that kind of swoopy side profile to it. So, and that was something that we also kind of played around with on, like how tall should that be? Because, again, right, we don't want like too prominent or proud, I guess, of a ring, so you don't want it to catch on things, and all of that, um. So that was that was a big piece of the process was figuring out like how do we still get that nice side profile while while not hurting the functionality, I guess, of the piece too much? Um? So a bit of tinkering around in CAD.
Speaker 3:Uh, they did give us, I want to say, one wax like printout of it, um, before we ultimately made the ring, um. But we also had so many sample pieces at their shop that we could kind of use and alternate pieces around, and they had a lot of different for typical band shapes. They had these little sample pieces that you could put on and put your stone into and get a sense of like how does that look? Is it too proud, does it need sort of accompanying stones, things like that? So we had really nice like visual, tactical or tactile rather references that we could use to like start to feel the ring before it was.
Speaker 1:That's cool, I'm just I'm a little surprised that you know, if everything is all custom, that it had to be resized, I guess, yeah, surprising.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and I think it could be. It could have just been like a time of year thing, because I think if we, we probably would have done most of the sizing and things like that in, um, like the summer months, and then the ring actually arrived in the middle of winter, so I think that that that could have contributed just like naturally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I noticed it with my, with my own ring is, uh like. The biggest one I noticed is if I go out boozing the night before, if I go out like on the town with my friends the next morning, my, my ring fits really uh, really tight yeah. And then if, especially during the winter, the winter, if I go out skiing, I come back my ring is super loose, yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, you almost dry out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But so one last thing, or one of them, is you guys aren't planning on getting married for another year, yeah. So do you think is it on you to find the wedding bands, or do you think is it on you to find the wedding bands, or do you think is that going to be another collaborative project? Will you pick your own or do you want to like match with Jen's?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean. So I don't think I necessarily want to match hers. We have different preferences. Like I already have some ideas of what I would want to see in my own band and we talked a little bit about it last night. I don't know, I think we'll. We'll probably shop on that a bit together. Um, yeah, we'll definitely shop in that a bit together. We already talked about for what her wedding band would look like. Um, so I, I think it would be really subtle on stones, uh, and it would just kind of come to a point.
Speaker 3:Um, and then it matches with the band right matches with the band and then it just sets in really nice uh on the with the engagement ring. So they, they're. I think those are meant to be paired together and that's one one cool thing that I think we get out of having worked on the ring together, versus me just taking a swing and then her picking, you know, let's say, she picked the wedding band. That's more limiting. I would say, um, but yeah, I think it'll. It'll ultimately ultimately be also a platinum, uh, less loud of a of a shape, more just meant to complement the, the engagement ring. And then on my end, I don't know, I have, I have some ideas. We actually have a friend who did uh for his wedding ring a, uh, it's like a piece of fossil, oh cool, uh, yeah, so, and it took a while for they had to do a lot like follow-up work on it.
Speaker 3:So I don't even know if I've like, if I've seen it more than once and they got married like six, seven months ago at this point, but when you were, when you were designing your ring, yeah, so you guys you and Jen, everybody I know I told you this yesterday are the most well-traveled people I know.
Speaker 1:Taylor's been to did the remote digital nomad style and like I would just look at your guys' Instagram and you guys would be in like frigging Macau and then Beijing.
Speaker 1:And then it's like, oh you're in northern Buenos Aires and oh, he's back in town. No way, and it's just like so, and Jen even more so, actually like she's a real hiker and you also both of you work with your hands a lot concern. Did you think at all about what type of ring you could wear in like uh, in some different countries, like as you're traveling? So, for example, my mom won't wear uh when she travels abroad. A lot of times she only wears her wedding band and won't wear, like, any engagement rings or any of the jewelry that my grandma has given her yeah, that's a good question, good question.
Speaker 1:I will say like we haven't um cause.
Speaker 3:I know that there are there are definitely places and we've been to some of them where you know you're on the lookout, you're more vigilant for safe next pockets. So you know how do you defend against that Easy things like a cross body bag or like, uh, you know something tucked in inside of your your waistband, just things not being accessible on your person or in your pockets, things like that. We haven't really since getting engaged, and this is largely because we've been kind of settled more or less for about a year and a half. Now we're coming up on a year and a half, so we haven't really run into that circumstance. But I definitely could see us doing kind of following your mom's lead on that and you know, either hiding the ring or just like putting on a necklace?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:And I mean at the end of the day. It's like I do really like those little necklaces, the ones that have the. It's almost like the, like a little puzzle to then put it on. They're pretty neat. Yeah, those are sweet, but yeah, I imagine we'll probably be. Yeah, tuck the rings away, because you just don't want to be. You don't want to stick out any more than you already do as a tourist.
Speaker 1:I'm with you. Yeah, okay, this has been super interesting. I think the reason why we have this is just I mean, you come from a world of user experience and just data-driven inferences. But what's fascinating is, a lot of times, the reason why we do these episodes is because jewelers sometimes, I feel like, are conducting their interviews with ring buyers in their stores, either before or after their purchase, and I do think it can skew the data and I think it's important just for jewelers to hear what a conversation with a ring buyer is like and like what actually went through their head, and just to get, like you know, listening on a user user interview.
Speaker 1:I've conducted user interviews about our own products a bunch of times and it's fascinating, like what's really important to me is sometimes not even close to important for them, because, like you learn that your login isn't very successful, it's like, oh, I hate having the login. It's so annoying how this feature doesn't work, yeah. And then it's like, oh, I'm like I'll focus on, like, what does the UI look like deeper in? And it's like, actually, it just fixed the login and you wouldn't know that unless you talk with someone.
Speaker 3:So yeah, definitely. I totally agree with you on the bias there. Right, you put someone in that awkward conversation where you know they're about to make what could be the biggest purchase of their life so far and and uh yeah, they might not be as honest as they might be or in as clear of a state of mind as they might be if they, you know, are in a totally separate setting yep, taylor.
Speaker 1:Thanks for thanks for joining bud. Thanks for having me. Mike, appreciate it. All right, everybody. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers bye. All right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. My guest this week was my buddy, taylor. It was really cool getting a chance to talk with him. We grew up together and getting a chance to speak with him about this next phase of his life is really cool. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers Bye.
