If you are looking for an engagement ring, it might be that your initial thought is to go for a solitaire ring with one single stone, usually a diamond. This is a popular option and if that is what you decide upon, the main choice to be made might be what sort of cut to have, for example, an emerald cut, Asscher cut or Opal cut.
However, there are alternatives and one very popular approach is to go for a trilogy engagement ring. As the name suggests, this has three stones. Usually (but not always), the largest is in the centre, with a smaller stone on either side.
The Origin Of Trilogy Rings
Trilogy rings are not a new idea. Indeed, historians have traced them back all the way to antiquity, where the ancient Egyptians are believed to have designed them to represent the three phases of the sun (rising, mid-day and setting), or the stages of life (birth, death and reincarnation).
This is speculation, however, and in modern times, different meanings can be given to them. A bespoke design may help encapsulate your own special meanings.
Indeed, you have lots of different design choices for your ring that you can pick, although there may be a few practical constraints. To begin with, your metal choice is going to be gold, silver or platinum, although gold tends to be the most popular, which, combined with a diamond, would bring together the most precious metal and most precious stone.
If you do choose a diamond as the central stone, the question is whether you want to combine it with two other diamonds, one on either side, or use other stones.
Many will choose the three diamonds, which can look beautiful in their own right and offer the opportunity for either three of the same cut (whether or not they are different sizes) or different cuts.
That choice gives you some different options and means you can still have one large diamond of a particular cut in the centre, just as you would with a solitaire ring.
Combining Diamonds With Other Gems
If you are looking at alternatives, there are different stones you can pick, but it is worth noting that there are only four that are classed as precious, rather than semi-precious. Apart from diamonds, these are rubies, sapphires and emeralds.
This does give you a great choice of colour combinations, with red, blue and green added to the white of a diamond, not to mention the fact that some sapphires are not blue, which can create some other, novel options. These are known as fancy sapphires.
However, it is important to remember one practical consideration: Because this is a ring that will be worn constantly, day after day, it makes sense for the stones to be hard-wearing and some are more suited to this purpose than others.
How The Mohs Scale Can Shape Your Choice
The hardness of gems is measured on the Mohs scale, which is topped by diamonds at 10. Being the hardest substance of all gives them the perfect quality of being just about impossible to scratch or chip.
Behind this, sapphires and rubies are both classed as corundums, with the different minerals in rubies giving them their red colour and all others being classed as sapphires. Corundums are a 9 on the Mohs scale and therefore the next hardest thing to diamonds, making them also very well suited to everyday wear.
Compared to these, emeralds are relatively soft at 7.5-8 on the Mohs scale. The scale is not linear but like an upward curve, so just as corundums are less than 90 per cent of the hardness of diamonds, emeralds are less than 75-80 per cent.
What this means in practice is that emeralds are much more likely to be chipped, while many of them have fault lines down which fissures can open up. That does not mean you cannot choose an emerald as one of the trio of stones, but you do need to be aware that it may need repairs in the future, in a way a diamond or corundum will not.
Alternatives To Emeralds
Even without emeralds, you still have some great options if you choose not to have three diamonds. You could have rubies on either side, two sapphires, or one of each. Fancy sapphires could give you a green option as an alternative to an emerald.
Simply having three stones trebles the options for a bespoke design compared with a solitaire ring, which enables you to be very creative with your ideas and enables us to provide you with plenty of choices.
Your trilogy engagement ring might not have the sort of meanings some believe the Egyptians gave to theirs, but it can be something both beautiful and personal.