Diamonds Direct Richmond — Local services in Short Pump

Diamonds Direct delivers! For those who care about quality and educated confidence in choice, read on.

Our engagement ring exceeds expectations, and my fiancée can't stop smiling and admiring it. Over the course of a month, both Ash and Ori worked to make sure one of them was available to work with my tight schedule. By the end of this journey, I was a regular at the store and had built quite an education in diamonds that has given me a whole new appreciation for quality jewelry. I was never drowned with information - everything I needed at each visit was provided. But if you want to go down the rabbit hole, I found that they had the expertise to guide as far as you could want to travel.

On my first trip to the store, Ash provided a level of service that removed any need to investigate other companies (and yet they still came out on top of competitors at every opportunity provided - more on this later). The first order of business was selecting a setting. I was presented with a wide variety of styles available right in the store and had selected a candidate by the end of the night. The rest of my time was spent studying loose diamonds, and throughout that process I refined the setting selection to arrive at a stunning combination of setting + diamond.

The real work was in finding the right diamond, and the options out there are unending. I cannot overstate the value of the experience Ash and Ori brought to this process. The four C's are clearly the bedrock of the evaluation process, but there is still more to consider that will have a dramatic effect on the cost and quality of your diamond. If you venture into the world of fancy-cut diamonds (as I did with the cushion cut), the options expand even further as even a single shape can be cut in many, many different ways.

There is a lot of useful information on a GIA report, including pictures showing the facet structure of that particular diamond. Over the course of a few weeks, I compared the GIA report of the candidate diamond I had found at Diamonds Direct against literally hundreds of diamonds from the biggest names in online diamond retailing. I returned to the store over a half dozen times to talk with Ash and Ori about what I had learned since the last visit, and each time they would provide context and clarity to help me sort fact from fiction, and to weigh what was truly important against what was not. This is not something you can learn from simply Googling - nothing beats an in person, tailored education.

The diamond I selected in the end was based on something I found online, a cushion-cut that was noticeably different and more brilliant than any that I had seen up until then. Despite this particular cut making up less than 0.1% of the cushion-cuts available, they were able to locate and bring in several for me to compare against the current candidate. On this particular visit, we compared several diamonds under a microscope, through an Ideal-Scope, ASET Scope, Hearts and Arrows Scope, in sunlight, indoor diffused light and spot light.

I am grateful for the amount of time that Ash and Ori invested with me in searching for the right diamond and for the no-pressure environment that they maintained throughout my many visits to their store. I got a diamond that is exactly what I want at a competitive (when competing against hundreds of thousands of diamonds online) price. At the end of the day, the look on my fiancée's face...

UPDATE: the wedding band that is correct diamond size that matches the engagement ring was delivered and in my possession. We went today and the manager was not aware of what’s going on but quickly fix the issue and we got it. About a week after a made this post the vice president or higher up at this branch called me and was very apologetic and put a rush on the ring and figured out a lot of the details and also gave us a very nice refund for all of this issues. Thank you so much!

Not consistent service. Left disappointed and frustrated. My fiancé worked with Rachel to find the perfect engagement ring. It was perfect however they never notified my fiancé that it was ready to be picked up. To finally he called and they said yes it’s been sitting here for a couple weeks. Frustrating oh well. Not even a couple days after he proposed, we had to take the ring back because there was an issue with the prongs and the ring being loose. They never told us what the issue just said they would fix it and clean it and call us when it was ready, they never did. We had to come in and check to make sure it was ready to be picked up. Fast-forward to looking at wedding bands ( 2 1/2 months before wedding) Rachel was busy so we went with Jana. She was great however, when the rings came in the wrong size was ordered for my Fiancé and the diamonds were smaller than my engagement ring on the band and it’s supposed to be a matching set. Even though on the receipt, it says matching band they were not matching. The wedding band, diamonds were smaller. And no one caught the mistake until I had to speak up and say something. Not sure how something like that happens for a matching set but OK. Rachel confirmed that the sizing was wrong. We got my Fiance‘s ring re-ordered in the correct size and they said it should be here before the wedding but when it came to my ring, they said it wouldn’t be here on time. Frustrating. No apologies while we were in the store. What was supposed to be a happy day was turned into a frustrating disappointing day to pick up rings. We were given the incorrect rings to take home to use for the ceremony. However, we went home and discuss and talked about getting a different wedding band for my fiancé and will be returning the ring and asked them to cancel the reorder of the correct band for him. Then my fiance called diamonds direct the next day asking for my band the matching band to be rushed or whatever because it was a mistake on their side. He got an apology over the phone, but never once in the store. Will update if the ring...

There is no Jeweler I would recommend more than Diamonds Direct. Every staff member knew their product and all of it's ins and outs. There was not one moment that I was there that I felt the staff members did not know their product.

Me and my then girlfriend (who is now my Fiancee thanks to the beautiful ring Diamonds Direct made just for her) ventured in to look for an engagement ring. My mother and father had gone to the same store to upgrade her ring for their 25th anniversary and recommended us at least look there. We walked in knowing absolutely nothing about diamonds, the diamond industry, color levels, clarity levels but after leaving I felt like a diamond expert and so did she. Everything was explained in great detail that was extremely understandable that anyone would feel confident in their own purchase after leaving.

We had the absolute pleasure of having Stephen Bittman be our Jeweler. Diamonds Direct is truly lucky to have such a Gem of a staff member working there. He knew absolutely everything about every setting, diamond, cut, clarity, color, etc. he showed to us. He made my now fiancee feel like an absolute princess as he catered to everything and truly made the entire experience about what she wanted in the ring she will wear for the rest of her life. After spending an afternoon looking at countless rings and settings, she finally decided on the perfect one. I did not even want to try another jeweler because Stephen was just so amazing that I did not want to buy a ring from anyone else. He completely catered to our every need and explained everything in crystal clear detail. I wish everyone who went to Diamonds Direct got to have Stephen help them. Even after we made our purchase, Stephen continued to give me constant updates on how long the ring would take and even sent the ring back when it came in the first time because he said it was not perfect enough for my future wife. He was constantly kind and professional throughout the entire process. My fiancee is completely and utterly thankful to him for making her dream ring a reality.

In conclusion, I would completely recommend Diamonds Direct without hesitation. They are professional, informative and really focus on what you want. I will never go anywhere else because of the experience I had there. I would give 6/5 stars if that were at all...