There has been a lot of speculation about when Britney Spears and Sam Asghari will finally tie the knot. Some rumors even go so far as to speculate that the celebrity couple has already married in secret.
Following the engagement announced in September of last year, both have been tight-lipped about their wedding plans. Britney Spears has been under conservatorship since 2008, but that hasn’t stopped her from finding love. She fought tooth and nail to end restrictions on her life, but in 2021, the struggle was finally over, and a judge terminated her conservatorship.
Despite sad news about Britney’s recent miscarriage, the couple is still committed to one another as they work through it. Britney’s sparkling engagement ring hasn’t lost its fire, and fans anticipate more details about the couple’s future marriage plans.
For his proposal, Asghari commissioned Roman Malayev of Forever Diamonds NY to design the engagement ring. After months of consultations and discussions, a 4-carat diamond ring was born. With a refined platinum band, it has a floating solitaire design using a cathedral setting.
Months of planning apparently got the intended reaction because Britney flashes her sparkler with abandon. Some fans might be wondering what’s involved in finding the perfect ring—especially in light of Sam’s odyssey. When it comes to finding the right diamond itself, it’s a pretty straight forward process, but there are some things to watch out for.
An industry standard used for appraising gemstones is called the “4Cs,” which stands for cut, color, clarity, and carat. Gemological labs that issue certificates to jewelry stores inspect stones under a x10 loupe and use a 4Cs chart to deliver a set of ratings.
Steve Bradley is a former gemologist with Corduran Group, a luxury jewelry manufacturer near Toronto. He talked about the standard in a Zoom interview yesterday. “Four Cs establish a nice baseline for rating stones. As a system, it’s good, but the problem is that the grading itself is a matter of opinion by a person in a lab,” he explained.
He talked about public perception of certificates. “When people walk into a store and see a certificate, they feel confident about the purchase; but if they knew how it really worked, they wouldn’t be. In reality, most grading labs are quite unreliable.”
Some sources believe that Asghari paid as much as $150,000 for the ring. One expert said that this price would be in line with a good quality stone, although there are high-end gems of that same size going for over half a million dollars. Certificates are issued in the same way for expensive stones as they are for more affordable jewels.
Lukas Briner buys loose diamonds in bulk for the Manhattan branch of luxury jewelry maker, Stalder Graf. “Not only are diamond grading labs often subject to inaccuracies and mistakes, but on more than one occasion both European and American gemological authorities have been accused of corruption,” Briner said.
In theory, machines are much more capable at measuring objects than humans could ever be. This was the premise of high-tech Sarine Technologies, a large Israeli company known for its three decades of industry innovations.
Sarine operates the world’s most accurate, automated diamond grading lab. AI-driven scanners with state-of-the-art optical sensors use 3-dimensional imaging and high magnification to objectively measure characteristics of a gem across the visible spectrum.
Robotic automation ensures that there are no human biases involved in the process, and it also makes it quick and cheap. Anyone interested in a diamond can simply make a request for digital analysis through a jeweler, and will be provided a Sarine digital report certificate. Once a shopper has a report in hand, then decisions are simply a matter of budget.
Briner recommends starting with a preferred size, followed by the shape. When referring to the digital report, quality of cut is often considered a more important factor than color and clarity, since it has a greater impact on sparkle; but it’s really all about personal preference.
Given all the popularity surrounding Forever Diamonds, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if Asghari chooses Roman Malayev to also create a matching wedding ring. It will be fun to see what magic he comes up with.