Hi Bill_Aire
Welcome to CDi- and of course thank you for looking at Diamonds By Lauren!!!
Your question is a great one- and it's NOT too long at all

A lot of times people come to us with situations that sound a lot like yours.

I'm kind of torn...because I don't want to discourage anyone from buying whatever they want, wherever they want.

On the other hand, building rings for fancy colored diamonds requires a special skill set than not many jewelrs have.

I suggest to many buyers that if we can see the type of ring they are interested in we could make one especially for the diamond they are looking at.
Buying diamond and ring together is in the consumer's interest. This way you have one person who's responsible for the whole project. If you buy them separately, and the ring is not what you expected, who do you blame?
 
At the very least, if we know what type of ring you want we can make more specific reccomendations about which diamond works best.

Let's look at your concerns:
Hands on: I never watch our setters when they work.  Same for our designers and jewelers.  In general, if you try to micromanage a fine craftsman, the results will not be positive.
The way we get our jewelry to be extremely high quality, and well designed, has to do with picking the right people-and giving them the freedom to work the way they know how.
If a client wants something totally different from the things we make, that requires photos- and consultation with our people.
For us, it's been a matter of trial and error.
We have plenty of "former" craftsman... the ones we've kept do their jobs so well.

I'm not saying that you should be uninvolved, rather I'm saying that you should concentrate on selecting someplace that will be able to make the rang to your satisfaction

Price: It's possible to make jewelry for a lot less than we pay to make it.
For example- We pay about $50 to set our center diamonds. There's places that will do it for $5. I don't want them touching our diamonds. I'm not suggesting you simply throw money away- but sometimes cheap is expensive in the long run

$1040 sounds quite reasonable for the two rings.
If they are using nice, well cut diamonds, and setting them well it could be a bargain.

In terms of setting a Yellow Radiant into that type of setting: You'd want to use a yellow head, and it could be quite nice.

To help select a stone from the ones you're considering, I'd ask you a few questions:
How important is clarity to you/her?
We sell a lot of I1 diamonds.

But we make sure that folks understand when they might see a spot, or someother imperfection.

It took me a while to see what David meant by this. Often there are requests to do something to a ring that will potentially put the ring at risk. What I mean is they set them a certain way to stay in the setting and altering it is not a good idea.

And I micromanaged my first ring 20 years ago (used someone locally) and the result was horrible and I had to live with it a long time. So when I had David make my em cut ring, I left the door open because I noticed that's when you got the best results.

And when he called to say he found side stones that he could cut into traps but what did I think of them as em cuts and not traps for a three stone ring. And the end result blows me away every day. I'm not the pro at ring making. David is. And his opinion was right on target.

By the way. I love pink sapphires. And they come in all levels of saturation. I really like the lighter pink sapphires. But a yellow radiant would look fab as a solitaire.

WOW!! Thank you all for your input. I am really glad that I found this site. I am amazed at the level of service and customer loyalty even before a transaction begins.

I have been doing alot of thinking about it and what I will most likely do is go ahead and just purchase the diamond from you and use it in the ring I have selected since she will only wear it for about a year (not to mention I think it is perfect for her and that she will love it.) Then next year I will let her design her wedding ring along with your designers and setters.

I never thought things would be so hard when I first started looking at rings a couple months ago. But I guess when you find the perfect one, you want to make sure she has the perfect one.

WOW!
I'm also touched by everyone's responses.

Billi- we'll be happy to work whichever way you feel comfortable.

As it says up top- we're closed today- but I will be in the office tomorrow.
Please feel free to call anytime!