Surprise Gift for my Wife
TLDR: Lab grown diamonds are a win all around, I’m impressed with my purchase and will absolutely buy more! If you’re on the fence, I say go for it!
Hey everyone, I wanted to share a really good experience I had once I decided to go lab grown as a special gift for my wife. First, some background: we are expecting a son in October, our first child, and we were beginning to wonder if we were going to be blessed with a child. Since we are, I thought that I should do something really special as a surprise for my wife, who is also my absolute best friend. After fishing a little bit in light conversation over the weeks, I discovered that she does not want to upsize her engagement ring stone and wanted a necklace. That is all well and good, except any stone that would make a sizeable pendant would be well outside of anything I could reasonably afford. I started to lose hope that I could do this, until a friend at work recommended that I look for lab grown stones.
I never thought that I would buy a lab created diamond, and I probably wouldn’t have investigated or considered lab diamonds if it hadn’t been for my buddy at work. He bought one for his fiancé on a black Friday sale last year (2025), told me he had a really positive experience, and encouraged me to look around and find one. He did recommend the company he used, but I don’t take recommendations lightly. I shopped around at nearly every site that offers lab grown diamonds, including some retail jewelers both local and nationwide. I actually bought my wife’s ring from one of those chains where ‘you have a friend in the jewelry business’ (iykyk 😉) and they offer lab grown diamonds, so they were the first place I looked. After checking maybe 8-10 sites, I finally settled on a size, a couple of shapes, and a color of stone, and began comparing apples to apples across my top 4 contender sites based on reviews from Reddit, BBB and TrustPilot.
By far and away, the best price I found on a larger stone like I wanted was at Loose Grown Diamond. I found a 5.11 CTW oval diamond, E color, VVS2 clarity, ideal cut oval diamond that is approx. 10mm x 14mm, and I rolled the dice. Or at least I thought I did; this stone is a SLAM DUNK!! I am beyond thrilled with the stone and I think she will absolutely love it!
I started looking at their settings and I also emailed a local jeweler so that I would have options. I am doing this whole project in secret, as it’s a surprise birth present for my beautiful wife. That’s normally not hard to do, but we both work from home and our offices share a wall…so I had to use only email to get quotes. The sales/chat staff at Loose Grown Diamond was very quick to answer my questions, and get me quotes on settings, etc. I unfortunately wound up being the difficult customer who hems and haws and can’t make up his mind, and they never seemed bothered and were always prompt to respond and polite (cordial, even!) when responding to me.
I got a quote from a local place and LGD, and compared them. I decided that I would use the local place for 2 reasons: one, to support local since I’m in KY and LGD is in NY and the prices were basically the same, and two, to ‘spread out the spend’ so to speak so I could order a large stone now on sale and then have it set in a month or two when I can save up a bit. Sounds simple, but it turned into a back and forth between the two companies and I changed my mind almost twice a day for four days on who I would go with. What else do you expect from email only correspondence tied to a large surprise purchase, am I right?
The local place quoted me something that doubled when I sent in a design I liked, so I panicked and last minute emailed LGD to get a quote while my stone was being processed for shipment. LGD responded super fast and said they understood the urgency and would be happy to hold my stone until I made a decision and got a design finalized. I pushed back on the local jeweler and they came back with something that was about $200 more than LGD, which is better than double. Even after all that, AND deciding to go with my local jeweler, LGD was still super cordial and happy to help, regardless of whether or not I wound up using them. The diamond is brilliant, the service was incredible, and I will absolutely be a repeat customer. If you’re looking for a lab grown stone, be it a clear or colored diamond, I side with my coworker and highly recommend Loose Grown Diamond.
As for the surprise gift, once I get it set in 14k gold I’ll post an update so y’all can see it in all it’s glory! It’s funny, internet strangers will get to see the pendant before my wife does! I hope this helps encourage someone who is looking for a nice stone at not house payment money to check out lab grown stones. I know that I’m a fan and will absolutely be shopping for more in the future to upgrade the Mrs’ sparkle factor.