Part1. Am I Stoopid, or is the Jewellery Industry Corrupt and Messed Up?

So, some of you know that I'm engaged, no news there. A couple months ago, we went to the Wonderful Wedding Show at the Convention Centre. One of the booths on displays was from Vandenberg's Fine Jewellery. They were offering to take photos of engagement rings for free consultations on custom wedding band design. Although we were quite pleased with the custom made engagement ring that I bought at Roger Watson Jewellers, we were planning on purchasing the wedding bands there. Nonetheless we figured lets see what Vandenberg's has to offer. We had the ring photographed.

About 5 weeks ago, Vandenberg's called us to set up an appointment for the consultation and we did. We went to Vandenberg's on April 16th. We spent about 90 minutes in their store working on the computer generating a design we liked for the wedding bands. Once all was said and done. I asked the big question; Cuánto Dinero? Wieviel? Or simply… How much?

Peter did a quick Alt+Tab to Excel. and an Uber complex spreadsheet opened.

Let’s see….
Her ring is 6mm wide, so about 18 gram weight gold in 18K.. that would be $668
My ring is 9mm wide, but bulkier, so about 25 gram weight gold in 18K, plus the .05ct diamond so $1400

…Silence...... I'm sure the hamsterwheel in my head could be heard across the room.... Her engagement ring, which was also 18K gold, was $550ish plus the ROCK; and it was wider than the wedding band was said to be... this is weird...

We asked Peter for a print out of the drawing he made, no go unless we place a $150.00 down payment (makes sense. He does the design and wants to get the business.)

I ask him to repeat the ring's specifics. I quickly jotted them down on the back of his business card. I looked at my fiancée and started mumbling to her. Peter then got up and told us he’d give us some space to discuss this. Once he left we commented on how we could have used a camera phone or my Palm pilot’s camera…. I then got another business card and hand drew the rings on the back.

I then told him I don’t like to make decisions like this without sleeping on it. We left and headed off to Roger Watson for another quote…..

Part two to come....

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