Representing Milestones: Hand Carved Pounamu and Diamond Engagement Ring Remodel

Updating your engagement ring as your love story evolves is a beautiful sentiment. When you want to incorporate new memories and milestones into something which represents your love story together, opting to remodel your existing engagement ring is a wonderful idea. 

This is exactly what Reagan and Will did. The couple based in the South Island’s Okains Bay had a beautiful diamond solitaire engagement ring, but had since created new memories through their marriage, including moving to New Zealand, having a daughter, and celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, so it only felt right to represent these milestones in an updated engagement ring design. 

We worked with Reagan and Will remotely, through emails and phone calls, to create concept sketches, 3D model renders, and to finally completely remodel Reagan's engagement ring. 

Will’s first Christmas gift to Reagan following their wedding was a beautiful double twist jade pendant, which he found on the West Coast on their first trip to New Zealand before immigrating permanently in 2014. After the birth of their daughter and with an upcoming 10-year wedding anniversary in 2020, they thought it would be timely to redesign their engagement ring. The idea was to feature the double twist design from the pendant but update it to a triple twist to represent the milestone of their daughter’s birth, and incorporate pounamu into the new design to represent the life they are building in New Zealand. 

Our designers took the elements of Reagan and Will’s story to evolve a concept sketch. Bouncing ideas between each other, and with Reagan and Will doing the same, together we came up with various design concepts which would use the diamonds from her wedding band and combine these with the diamond from her engagement ring, along with new pounamu inlays. 

The designs then started coming to life as a 3D model render of the ring design was created by our computer-aided design (CAD) team. Working closely with Reagan and Will we then evolved the design to create a subtle twist design to showcase more of the jade and the result was just what they envisaged. We also included the fine triple infinity twist into the setting just below the main diamond to complete and visibly portray the meaning of her story.

Once the final render design was approved the ring was carefully crafted by Dan, one of our award-winning jewellers. The precious metal and diamond aspects of the ring were completed first and it was then time to carefully carve the jade sourced from the Marsden River in the South Island. The project required the pounamu to be carved into the perfect shape and size so it could be inlaid snugly into the band, all of which was undertaken by Dan.

The final design has a lovely subtle flow to it which allows you to see each aspect of Reagan and Will’s story; the jade in the band representing the pendant Will gifted Reagan, the diamonds from Reagan’s wedding band, the centre diamond from Reagan’s original engagement ring, and of course the triple infinity twist to represent their milestones, in particular the birth of their daughter.