Far exceeded our expectations

I knew that I needed some education in order to make a good purchasing decision, so I spent a lot of time on the Rocky Talky forum at pricescope.com learning about choosing a diamond and the pros/cons of the different ways of purchasing, and the different online vendors. Whiteflash received universal high praise from the experts in the forum. Their wide selection of in-stock stones, inspection, return and upgrade policy, and competitive prices put them far ahead of any other vendor. Although I didn't use the service, several forum posters had mentioned that if you were unable to decide between two similar stones, it was easy to call them, get on the phone with a certified gemologist, and have them take a look at the stones you were considering and give their expert opinion on which would be the better choice for you. Other vendors, whose stock mostly resides with others, simply can't do that. The other thing we wanted was a custom designed setting. We had an idea for our own setting, and worked with a designer there to try to come up with something inspired by another design, but sufficiently different, and unique. This is a difficult process, especially over the phone and thru email, and to be honest, the first design was pretty far from what we had in mind. At that point I was ready to throw in the towel, but the consultant on the sale suggested we try one more round with the designer, and see how much closer we could get with a second round. The designer, Joseph, was very patient and it was clear he wanted to come up with a design that would satisfy us. The second set of CAD renderings was much closer to what we wanted, but still looked "chunky". We were told that what we were seeing was the starting point and subsequent work would remove a lot of material. We thought we were sufficiently close that with just a couple more refinements we would be there, so we went ahead and ordered the setting. I think I received the ring with the stone set in a couple weeks. It was SPECTACULAR. Everything they said about the setting was true. In its final form, it was beyond what we had hoped for. The diamond I chose was a 2ct ACA (A Cut Above), which is the best of the ideal cut diamonds. It's true that cut is the most important of the Cs. Everyone comments about the sparkle and brilliance of the stone. We couldn't be happier with the outcome of our purchase. The service, the quality, the value, the expertise, the friendliness, all tens across the board. Thank you Joseph, thank you Liza.