CUSTOM DESIGN STORY: JOHN & JOHANNA'S ANNIVERSARY RING

In my opinion, there’s only one way to do a tenth anniversary- any anniversary actually- and that is with a very special and thoughtful gift. Of course this gift also has to commemorate the journey of your love, bring joy, and include at the very least one diamond. John played his cards right coming to us to surprise his wife Johanna with a new custom anniversary ring for their tenth anniversary. From day one, John was very concerned with making sure the design of Johanna’s ring was special. He paid attention to the details and after a few conversations about the importance of exclusivity, agreed that a ring of this quality deserved to be one of a kind.

The design process started with three designs. We wanted to do something that was still a traditional silhouette but with a more contemporary structure, using an emerald cut diamond as the center stone. John also requested that the ring include an X to commemorate their tenth anniversary after seeing this detail in some of our other rings.

The first of the anniversary ring designs was inspired by the Guggenheim museum. Just like us, John said how much he loved an abundance of diamonds. This Guggenheim inspired setting included a very subtle negative space between rows of pave diamonds, just like the Guggenheim. In this design the X detail was included under the center stone right on top of the finger.

The second design was a “toi et moi” concept. The idea was to have a really spectacular emerald cut diamond flanked by a smaller green emerald. The two bands would meet at the bottom and form the X there.

The third design included a wider band. This ring was designed to have X’s on the side gallery and a band that wrapped around, crossing through them.  

The final design was an attempt to replicate the openness of our AXIS band, which John loved from the beginning. We wanted it to have the same open concept as the AXIS band but to be unique. The X’s on the side came together at the bottom to create another X and, as a bonus, the final result looks a bit like the Eiffel Tower turned upside down.      

Once we decided on the design that’s when we sourced the diamond.

Lindsey Scoggins: “I sourced the diamond in the middle of the pandemic in April. I called three or four companies throughout the world, and first of all, because of the size of the diamond there were only a few available and anything that was not in America already could not be shipped to me until those countries opened back up again- which turned out to be fine because the perfect diamond was sitting in Chicago, and within a matter of days I had it. I was able to refine the design to fit the diamond and her finger exactly.”

The process of finding the diamond was not only difficult due to the pandemic but also due to how rare a diamond of this size tends to be. At nearly five carats, it really deserved to be perfectly cut and proportioned. It was already a very short list of stones that fit the size we were looking for and quite a few of those required a compromise with either clarity, color, or positioning of some of the inclusions. Fortunately there was a diamond in Chicago that met all of the high standards that we were looking for.

Johanna’s custom anniversary ring was finished at the end of June. It certainly included an abundance of diamonds with over 200 stones. This pandemic born beauty was a welcome return to designing and creating beautiful jewels following weeks of quarantining at home- also a spectacular addition to Johanna’s jewelry box.

Contact us for a custom anniversary ring, to see anniversary ring designs, or to treat yourself to an abundance of diamonds.