Engagement Rings 2010

on March 12th, 2010 | Ideas and Inspirations

As you can imagine, the jewelry business has been victim to our economic slip-slide. According to the preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, however, 2009 hasn’t been as bad as one would expect. Jewelry and watch sales only dipped 1.6 percent over 2009. And guess what sector of this nearly 60 billion dollar industry has been providing the much needed support? You’ve got it – everything bridal. Bridal jewelry – engagement rings, wedding bands, and all sorts of other jewelry that are gifted around the wedding and showered upon the bride or her maids -sells well in all economic environments. The size of the ‘rock’, however, has shrunk. According to a recent survey of jewelers by the National Jewelry magazine, the average bride has shifted down a notch in the size of the diamond. If the bride of the previous would on average go for the 2 carat, last year she’d tone it down to a 1.5. The good news in general for the consumer is that diamond prices have been on a continuous downward trend, especially for the larger ones. They are ,however, expected (acc. to IDEX) to start their slow, upward climb this year. As far as the shape and color: round diamonds still continue to be the most popular shape, and yellow is the most common choice for brides who like their diamonds to have color, followed by blue. Color stones continue to grow in their popularity.

Ok, enough about the numbers. There are thousands of beautiful engagement rings out there; just walk down 47th street and you ask yourself: why do I only have two eyes or how come a girl only gets to pick one of these? One just can never get enough. So here are some more eye-candy.