A deposit on a custom piece is usually fifty percent. Sometimes more. Most people I work with are spending several thousand dollars at minimum, and a fair number are spending well into the five figures. Before that money leaves your account, there are five or six questions worth asking that will tell you more about who you're working with than any Yelp review ever will.

I'll walk through them.

Who is actually making this?

This is the most important question and the one nobody thinks to ask. A lot of jewelers — including some with very nice storefronts — design pieces and then send the actual production overseas, often to large casting houses where your ring is made on an assembly line alongside a hundred others. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but you should know about it. If the romance of "custom" matters to you, ask whether the person you're talking to is the same person doing the bench work, or whether the design and the making are happening in different countries.

In my studio, I do the design, and I work with a small team of bench jewelers I've used for years. Every piece passes through my hands at multiple stages. That's not the only honest model, but it's the one I can vouch for.

Where is the stone coming from, and what paperwork comes with it?

For diamonds over about half a carat, you should expect a GIA certificate. That's the gold standard for grading. Some jewelers will offer EGL or AGS certifications, which are not as strict — that's worth knowing. For colored stones, ask whether the stone has been heat-treated (most sapphires have been; that's normal and accepted), or whether it's been treated more invasively (lattice diffusion, fracture filling, beryllium treatment — these are not the same thing and they affect value significantly).

If a jeweler is vague about a stone's origin or treatment, that's a flag. Not always damning. But worth a follow-up.

What happens if I don't like it when it's done?

You should know the answer before you sign. With most custom work, by the time the piece is cast and set, you can't reverse the major design decisions without making it from scratch. So the approval process before that point is what matters. Ask whether you'll see CAD renderings before casting. Ask whether you'll see a wax or 3D-printed model. Ask how many rounds of revisions are included.

The way I do it: my clients see a 3D rendering before we cast, and we talk through it together. Once we cast in metal, we're committed to that geometry. I don't proceed unless we're aligned at the rendering stage. That's not unique to me, but if a jeweler can't tell you what the approval steps are, they probably don't have any.

What's the timeline, honestly?

A genuine custom piece takes time. Anywhere from four weeks for something simple to twelve weeks or more for something complicated. If a jeweler is promising you a custom engagement ring in seven days, you're getting something off a template, not something custom. Which, again, is fine — but the pricing should reflect that.

I tell people to plan three months for an engagement ring and to start sooner than they think they need to. Engagement season backs up every spring.

What does the warranty actually cover?

Read this carefully before you put down money. Most warranties cover manufacturing defects but not "normal wear" — and "normal wear" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. A prong that lifts because the stone got knocked into a counter is normal wear at most jewelers. Find out what's free, what's at cost, and whether you have to come back annually for "inspection" to keep the warranty valid (a lot of the chain stores require this and conveniently use it as an upsell appointment).

The honest answer is that fine jewelry needs occasional maintenance regardless of who made it. What you want to know is whether your jeweler will stand behind their work without making you feel like a problem.

If you've got a project you're thinking about and you'd like a sense of how all of this looks in practice, you can reach out here and we'll set up a conversation.