For Samantha

A couple came back for the ring that would carry the decade ahead.

Samantha and her husband came to me together, near their tenth anniversary, to design a new wedding set — an engagement ring and a wedding band — for the next ten years of their marriage. The first question at this house is always the same: what is the piece for. Their answer was continuation. Samantha was clear about the direction, too: she wanted it minimalistic — an oval diamond as the one main stone, a thick band, and little else to begin. That was the brief we started from, and the one the work would keep testing.

What we agreed, in your name. The brief is set.

Minimal, as she first asked: one stone, one band.

Samantha's first instruction was restraint. She wanted the oval diamond to be the one voice of the set, and a thick, simple band beneath it — no other stones, nothing competing. So the first drawing is exactly that: the oval bezel-set and lifted on a wide, high-polish band, with a plain matching band beside it. Clean, and calm. When she saw it, though, it read as more plain than she had pictured — simpler than the moment deserved. The set needed more life.

— Design 1 — one stone, one band —

— Design 1 — the simple set —

She asked for movement, and for stones on the band.

Her note after the first drawing was specific: give the band a curve, and put round diamonds on the wedding band. So the straight shank became a gentle wave, and round diamonds entered the set — running along the wedding band and flush down the shoulder of the engagement ring, so the piece caught light in more than one place. It had more life than the first. But the main band still read as ordinary to her — a curved version of the same simple loop. The form itself had not changed yet.

— Design 2 — the curve, with rounds —

The band stops closing — the Snake Walk turn.

This was the drawing that changed everything. Samantha had seen our Snake Walk ring, where the band does not complete a loop but crosses itself, the two ends left open in the air. She asked for that turn. So the engagement band was rebuilt to cross rather than close — its ends finishing openly instead of meeting — and the wedding band was revamped completely: thinner, with the diamonds taking dominance over the metal, round stones set so the light leads and the gold recedes. She loved it. And yet it was not quite finished — the crossing band, for all its movement, still had an empty stretch that wanted something.

— Design 3 — the open cross —

She loved the crossing. She wanted the band to carry more.

One more consultation. Samantha was clear that the engagement band — the open, crossing one — was right, but still looked empty along its length. So we talked about setting stones into it, and she wanted a shape she had not used yet: not the oval of the centre, not the rounds of the wedding band, but a rectangle. We agreed on baguette diamonds, set along the crossing shank. Her wedding band she loved exactly as it was, so we left it untouched and changed only the engagement ring. One change, and the set was whole.

Oval, baguettes, and a band left open where two lives cross.

The finished set. The engagement ring keeps Design 3's open, crossing band and fills it the way Samantha asked: baguette (rectangle) diamonds set along one shank, leading up to the oval diamond bezel-set at the top, with the two ends of the band left open in the air rather than closing — the Snake Walk turn, made theirs. The wedding band stays exactly as she fell for it: thinner, diamond-dominant, round stones set so the light leads and the gold recedes. Three cuts of stone, one set — oval, baguette, round — and a band that does not close, for a marriage that does not either. 14K yellow gold throughout. Named and struck: The Crossing.

— The Crossing — the whole set —

— The Crossing — the two bands —

Cast, crossed, set, marked.

The quiet phase, now underway. The two bands are raised in 14K yellow gold; the engagement shank is formed to cross and finish open, the way it was drawn; the oval is bezel-set at the top, the baguettes set along the crossing band, and the round diamonds seated across the thinner wedding band so the stones lead. Then the inside of each band is struck with the Mark. What passed through four drawings now takes on a weight you can wear. Bench photographs will be added here as they come from the bench.