If you haven’t heard I recently got engaged to my girlfriend of 7 years, Kathy Lien. I really wanted to make Kat’s ring very special and give her something that no one else has, so I worked with a talented and wonderful designer, Lisa Linhardt to create her custom setting.
In the 3D modeling program Blender I made an initial model of the ring. After looking around 47th street and some stores in the village Kat and I realized that we really liked the knife-edge concept and we wanted to have the micro-pave on only one side of the edge. See the first two images.
Armed with this we went to see Lisa. She told us about this really great book, 500 Wedding Rings. Inspired by what we found I sketched the drawing on the second image. Lisa also gave us the idea of having an interlocking wedding band, where the notch in the top helps it form a perfect fit with the engagement band.
With this sketch Lisa and I met to discuss where we can go with this and some of the engineering issues with the sketch. We arrived at the first CAD (Computer Aided Design) design. Its 4 prongs felt too industrial and I wanted something more organic and more curvaceous. Lisa then presented the final CAD which included a bypass setting, something we both wanted, as well as an ‘s’ curve that I wanted down the middle. I also abandoned the idea of having the micro-pave only on one side and instead made it on alternating sides which emphasizes the angle that the bypass created.
In Chinese culture there are 3 things that are pretty important when dealing with marriage, roundness which symbolizes a perfect and ideal marriage, six which symbolizes a fluid and smooth marriage, and 9 which symbolizes longevity. After looking at a handful of stones Kat opted for a conflict free brilliant round over a cushion. The bypass accentuates the roundness and adds more strength than a traditional 4 prong. Kat also previously showed interest in a halo setting, which is another reason for a bypass and the micro-pave that sits on it. In all there are 6 prongs, 2 are the bypass, 2 come up the side as ‘fake’ prongs and 2 more attach to the bypass. The final stone has 36 micro-pave stones, which I thought worked as its divisible by 9. In fact its more important that the 3 + 6 = 9, so I was safe!
Just as a final note, it was REALLY great working with Lisa and we can’t wait to create our wedding bands with her.
