Love & Promise Jewelers — Local services in Chicago

There are moments in life when you realize you have made a terrible and costly mistake. I never thought this would happen to me, but here I am. Every time I think about my experience in custom designing a ring at this place and the ring that was delivered to me, almost two thousand dollars later, my stomach turns.

I went into Love & Promise Jewelers with so much hope and trust. We had consultations with many other jewelers and ultimately decided on Love & Promise as the place to custom make my dream engagement ring. We paid $150 in addition to the cost of the custom made ring ($1825 total), for a VIP Custom Rush. Putting the ring on my finger after a month of stress, sleepless nights, hours on the phone and emails with them, and two trips to Chicago, was heartbreaking. Our 3 year anniversary, which I had been looking forward to for so long, was one of the worst days of my life. All my fears and concerns that I raised with them during the design process, although they assured me it would be fine, became a reality.

In addition to the overall design, the height and width of the brackets on the two side stones are uneven. Visually, I could see this right away up close, in addition to blurry photos of the ring they sent me from an ipod. I could see the error and Laura assured me “the ring looks beautifully straight.” I confirmed with another jeweler, the same day, what I was seeing was indeed correct. The jeweler asked if I noticed that multiple prongs on the side were not actually touching the diamonds. I was shocked. I could easily slip my finger nail under the prongs. Besides their error in never listening to any of my concerns with the design, the ring is blatantly flawed in quality.

A week into the process, I realized that this was a huge error on my part. I should’ve ended the process there. I raised my concerns multiple times with 3 people at Love & Promise…they all reassured me that my custom ring was going to be great. I based it off the design “Gloria” but wanted to make it my own. Ten seconds into trying on my ring, I took it off, crying. That was the first and last time I put the ring on my finger.

Love & Promise is very clever with words, responses, and they were attempting to make it right. I could not trust people who wanted to take the easy way out in the beginning. They wanted $200+ in addition to everything I've already paid, to fix the angle of the side brackets and the clear evidence of poor quality workmanship.

I had read all the reviews before starting this process and even in the bad ones, it seems like Love & Promise was sincere and the customer did something wrong which resulted in the customers issue. Whatever they reply to this review I want to be the first one to say, yes, I did do something wrong. My fiance put all his trust in me, as I did with Love & Promise, and I immensely regret designing a ring with them.

There’s two pieces of advice I will leave anyone reading this...trust your gut and look at the BBB website. This is the second claim that has been filed against them.

I would never recommend custom designing with them. I’m taking this entire experience as a learning lesson.

UPDATE: I'm adding an email sent to BreAnne addressing my concerns with the CAD. The email includes THREE examples. I’m not sure why Shirley is so hung up on the jeweler Vrai, it was one of the many examples all showing a 3 stone ring. Photoshoot? I'm sure you meant our once in a lifetime engagement pictures that I won’t have a ring to wear in. I never said I wanted a redesign for free on the phone; Julie flat out told me the redesign would be $220 to fix the ring. Julie also might remember I told her the jeweler said the ring was well made for it being hand made. I went back to the jeweler and he noticed all the flaws and even took pictures to show other jewelers. Shirley said I exhausted over 7 hours...yes, I spent a significant amount on the phone asking them to fix ONE thing about the ring. Custom design rings allow up to 5 changes, they...

We originally bought our wedding bands here,about 6 years ago and were pleased with the attention to detail and catering to our individual styles and request. This past summer we returned to purchase an anniversary/ push ring. Strike 1:My husband had lost his wedding band and I was interested in having another made. I was a little disappointed to learn they did not keep a record of our previous order and would not be able to simply remake the ring, as it was custom and I didn’t remember all the details. Strike2: After wearing my new band for about 10 weeks a stone fell out. I was told I likely bumped it and loosened the stone. It not sure how this could have been possible with such minimal wear, but was pleased they would replace the stone. I decided leave my other 2 bands to be tightened and 1 resized. There was a small fee for the resizing. Strike3: I was told the repairs would take about a week. 12 days later I received an email stating the repairs had not been started due to my invoice not being paid. Only problem is,it was paid! They explained there was some kind of glitch on their end since I paid online using paypal (a payment option listed at checkout). Obviously, I was unhappy to hear of the delay , especially when it was at no fault of mine. When I asked why I wasn’t notified sooner I was told “some people don’t like to be called.”What?! Well, I was never called anyway, I got an email! This was not a new sale!! This was a repair! Who wouldn’t want status updates on repairs in a timely manner?! They continued to make excuses for their lack of professionalism, never once taking ownership of the issue. Instead they repeatedly told ME (via email & in person)how to proceed in the future. I’ve always received compliments on my bands and have referred a number of people there over the years (locally and etsy).Unfortunately, I feel this company is in over their heads, and the quality of the product and customer service has declined. You’d think with the number of years they’ve been in business they would have a better knack for satisfying the customer and taking responsibility when mistakes are made. There is no shortage of jewelers in Chicago or online and I would just save yourself the trouble and take your...

DO NOT BUY FROM love and promise jewellers. The quality of the jewellery that they produce is EXTREMELY poor. I bought my now wife, an engagement ring last year, and with just over 6 months of light wear the stone fell out and was lost. We have had no luck communicating with L&P about the issue, even after providing detailed photos of the obvious defects in the ring (there is a hole in the basket where it has been soldered to the main body of the ring). We have gone to two separate jewellers (in Australia) for an independent evaluation, who each confirmed that the ring was NOT constructed to adequate specifications to support the stone. They stated that as well as the (obvious) poor build quality, the supporting prongs were 30% thinner then they should have been and combined with normal temperature fluctuations from day-to-day wear has caused the metal to expand the stone to come loose. I have lost THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS on this ring and I am very upset, as is my wife. This was supposed to be a forever ring, not 6 months. I would have written this review on ETSY except for the 100 day time limit for reviews.

UPDATE from below response. Dear L&P.

I am aware that gold melts at 1948 F, thankfully the ring did not melt off my wife’s fingers. I am sure you know that metals expand and contract with temperature, it is called LINEAR THERMAL EXPANSION COEFFICIENT and gold surprisingly is a metal. Seems that your standard practise is to place blame on the customer in all cases. You state "Although our products are handcrafted with care and expertise". Two independent Jeweller assessments say otherwise.

You have not addressed the follow issues with the ring

There is a hole in the basket where it has been soldered. The claws that hold the stone in place are way to thin The basket does not have adequate structural support

Are these defects "best practice within our industry"? doesn't seem to be much "care and expertise" at all.

Offering a discount is not acceptable, we request that the ring be repaired with the above defects addressed and the stone replaced at no...