The little lady and I have been using the Shane Co exclusively for all of our expensive jewelry purchases. Their warranty is awesome and the customer service has been great. There was only one instance where a sales associate was an idiot. In that situation I simply told him to get someone else to help me and that is exactly what was done no questions asked.

If you are buying a ring for someone else you need their input on the size, style and design for it to be something that they really want. How would you feel if your girlfriend bought you a car that you had zero opportunity to provide any input on selecting? Especially when the primary purchasing requirement was to make it as cheap as possible. How likely would it be that the car would be something you really wanted?

You also need to be an educated buyer and know the value of the different metals for the settings, durability of the metal, and clarity / quality of the stones. Metals have different levels of durability and show wear differently. For example, platinum is fairly soft and can bend and scratch very easily compared to Gold.

Buying an engagement ring or wedding set can be a significant investment but it still needs to be within your reasonable budget. The quality of what you are buying is a very important factor that will dramatically sway the price. Us "Dudes" don't understand the importance "Chicks" place on a high dollar wedding set as there is always something else more practical that the same amount of $$$ could be used for. But we have our expensive vices as well. Tally up how much you have spent on ammo, safes, guns, motorized toys, tools, or whatever else. Once you do that an expensive wedding ring will probably be chump change in comparison. The only difference is that you are taking the big punch to the wallet all at once with a wedding set.