Pave Fine Jewelry Design, Oakland

I came to Pave after browsing through some of their designs on the internet, which I must say were highly impressive. I found the salesperson (Sonja) to be quite courteous and helpful she assisted me in selecting a nice eternity ring for my wife's Christmas present. After being handed the gift-wrapped package and my receipt for the purchase, however, I found the experience to slide downhill. At that point, Sonja informed me that resizing the ring might incur some added cost because the price of gold has risen so much. I asked for an estimate and she indicated she would provide it during the sizing process. I returned after Xmas with my wife to have the ring sized. Sonja indicated that she would call with the estimate. She did on Monday, informing me that resizing for a $1200 ring would COST AN ADDITIONAL $1200!!!! No markup in gold price could account for an added $1200 to add a few mm of length to a ring of that thickness. Sonja indicated that Pave would share the added cost with me, bringing it down to a mere $600. After consulting with my wife, we decided to pull the plug on that purchase and are now in the process of locating a more reputable establishment. I must say that Sonja's actions spoiled a nice Xmas surprise.

We absolutely love our engagement ring from Pave. We have only good things to say about Pave and were so thrilled with the finished product that I promised to take my time and write this positive review... Sonja helped all the way through with the design and production and will always be remembered as an integral part of our engagement ring story. When my girlfriend and I began looking for engagement rings, we figured we'd get an off-the-shelf ring. Sadly, we were dissatisfied with the rings we found in various jewelry stores - boring, weird, cheap, etc. Still, Pave had the best quality, both in jewelry and service. We then asked about Pave's custom process. They gave us a price much lower than I expected, and even lower than I was planning to spend on an off-the-shelf ring. Sonja quickly sketched up a concept for the ring - we instantly fell in love with it (unlike Sonja, some jewelers will not draw until you put money down). We said okay to the price and the work began. (FYI: Pave does not haggle, and, the price never changed from that day). We had an old European cut diamond for the center stone - Sonja loved it, incorporated it into the ring design, and safely took temporary possession of it (Pave is more than trustworthy). Two weeks later we had a wax cast of the ring. Twice we wanted minor changes to the design and Pave happily included them. Once the wax cast was perfect, we gave our approval to cast the ring, and it was ready two weeks later. It was more beautiful than I imagined. And of course, my girlfriend said YES, and still stares at her ring in excitement to this day. All in all, the custom process lasted about a month & a half. Pave uses CAD to design the ring and a connected machine to cut the wax cast - very technologically cool. Pave would be even better if they had a large portfolio in their showroom of their other custom designed rings and if they provided CAD images of the ring design prior to the wax casting. We will soon get our wedding bands from Pave, also custom.

If anyone else is shopping for engagement ring or wedding bands, I highly recommend you check out Pave Fine Jewelry Design located on College Ave in Oakland. It's a small boutique shop but the sales staff are extremely helpful, especially if you are looking to build your own custom ring from scratch. My husband designed my engagement ring, with the knowledge that I wanted a princess cut center stone with smaller circular diamonds on the sides. After 2 weeks, I went in to test out the wax mold (replica of what your future ring will be like). The sales lady, Leann (who no longer works there anymore) was extremely nice and showed me what my ring will look like, by placing smaller diamonds on top of the mold so I could picture it. After another 4 weeks of waiting, I got the beautiful custom engagement ring that my husband designed for me. Other jewelry shops, including the ones at the mall have boring ring styles by far when compared to Pave. On our 2nd wedding anniversary, we decided to go back to Pave to custom design a sapphire ring. The new sales person, Emily, drew the ring design I wanted and I'm expecting my wax mold to come in any day now! For a girl, it's very exciting shopping for your own ring and have one that is unique in design, that nobody else has.

Pave Fine Jewelry Design is the best jewelery store I've ever been to- it was a dream come true after searching endlessly for the right engagement ring for my girlfriend. Though they had a lot of great options in the store I had a specific idea of what I wanted, but had not seen anywhere. A really friendly designer there offered to make it for me, explaining that it is a fun and easy process- which it was! She drew exactly what I wanted right in front of me, and in a barely over a week I was holding a wax model of the ring I had wanted to find all along! After that they made it out of platinum and finished it and a few weeks later I had the exact, perfect ring, and it was so much cheaper than the one I had planned as a fall back option at TIffany's! You should stop in here even if you're just looking around, but you have got to go here if you're looking for something really special or different than what you can find in other stores.