How To Pick An Engagement Ring: The Celebrity Inspiration Guide

Are you a bohemian princess? An unapologetic glitter diva? A vintage beauty? Whatever your personal style, you’ve probably glanced at the glossy magazine pages of your favorite celebrity icon once or twice, inwardly envying her gorgeous hair or perfect clothes, an of course, her stunning (and stunningly pricey!) engagement ring. But when it comes to your engagement ring, you probably won’t be the one to choose it. Our advice? Print this out and leave it inconspicuously where your soon-to-propose boyfriend is sure to find it.

Your Ring: Solitaire diamond in a pavé halo setting

This simple-but-stunning design combines the classic elegance of the solitaire engagement ring with the sparkle and fun of a pavé setting. Available in all price points, this engagement ring offers some fun and style.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Katie Holmes wears an oval solitaire, all-American princess Katherine Heigl wears a pear-shaped version, and the most girly girl of all, the one and only Katy Perry, amps up the classic engagement ring with a yellow gold band.

Your Ring: Marquise solitaire

A striking marquise-shaped diamond and a perfectly simple band make the ultimate fashionable engagement ring. Not for the fashion faint of heart, this exquisite diamond shape is a slim oval with sharply pointed ends that works best on a simple engagement ring.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Who else but the queen of cutting-edge fashion, Mrs. Victoria Beckham herself? Although her days as a pop singer are behind her, David Beckham’s better half is still pretty posh, with her sharply trendy haircuts, super-high heels, perfectly tailored dresses, and of course, a marquise solitaire engagement ring.

Your Ring: Emerald-cut ring with a three stone setting

The three-stone setting has long been a favorite of women with classic, refined elegance. It is beautifully proportioned and shows off a gorgeous center stone with two equally beautiful side stones. The emerald cut, with its symmetrical facets, is one way to play with the lines and geometric shapes of a three-stone engagement ring.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Two Desperate Housewives have been seen with this glamorous engagement ring style: Nicolette Sheridan and Eva Longoria Parker. Eva Longoria’s engagement ring has a pretty high carat wattage already, but she turns up the bling with a pavé band and a diamond-set setting. But even that doesn’t beat Hilary Duff’s enormous emerald-cut three-stone engagement ring, with a center stone estimated at 10-12 carats and an estimated cost of $1 million!

Your Ring: Colored diamonds

However you set them, colored diamonds are the fun, sparkly and girly sister to white diamonds’ more restrained elegance. Colored diamonds (or other colored gemstones) can be the center stone of your engagement ring, can be used as side stones or as part of the diamond melee on the ring band. A custom-designed engagement ring would probably be the best way to get your favorite colored stones incorporated into the ring.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Colored diamonds find their way into celebrity engagement rings in many different ways, from Heidi Klum’s super fashionable yellow diamond solitaire, to country princess Carrie Underwood’s yellow sparkler in a pavé setting, to the most glittery celebrity of all time, Mariah Carey, whose engagement ring is a white diamond set into a pavé setting made entirely of cottonp-candy pink diamonds.

Your Ring: Square-cut solitaire

A square-cut diamond, most commonly a princess-cut, although other shapes exist, is a unique way to pick an engagement ring that is perfectly simple and beautiful without being the same as everyone else. Princess-cut stones are rising in popularity, while Asscher, radiant, and cushion shapes remain relatively rare.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Demi Moore, an icon of timeless youthfulness, wears a simple engagement ring with a square-cut stone. Ivanka Trump designed her own engagement ring, which is a similar style, America’s favorite newlywed, Chelsea Clinton, appears to have followed this understated trend as well.

Your Ring: Solitaire in a Bezel Setting

Tough enough to handle extreme sports, and yet gorgeous in its own unique way, a bezel setting, whether total or partial, sets off a diamond by encircling it in a protective collar. An engagement ring with a bezel setting can be engraved with a decorative design, set with small diamonds, or left ultra-simple and eye-catching.

Your Celebrity Inspiration:

Pop singer Fergie isn’t afraid to rock out with the guys, and yet her engagement ring is as pretty and girly as they come. She wears a brilliant-cut solitaire diamond set in a platinum bezel setting.