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Finding an engagement ring can be exhausting. You must set a budget, translate jewelry jargon, and pick or design the perfect ring your partner will love. Then, you must navigate payment and ensure the ring arrives in time to pop the question.
Let’s face it: Most traditional jewelers produce designs and market towards heterosexual relationships. Fortunately, many new designers emphasize that their jewelry is for everyone, offering a nice mix of feminine and masculine styles.
We’ve selected five brands that cater to lesbian and LGBTQ+ couples. This article provides a great list if you’re looking to support queer-owned brands and inclusive designers. We’ve also included jewelry companies that emphasize ethical sourcing and sustainability practices.
4 Steps To Buying An Engagement Ring
Are you ready to pick out the perfect engagement ring for your partner? Use these steps to begin your search:
- Set a budget: Decide a price you feel comfortable with before starting your search.
- Choose a setting: A ring’s setting refers to the whole design, excluding the center stone—prongs, gallery, band, and any other accents that adorn the band. Here’s where you will choose the ring style overall (modern, antique, etc.) and metal type.
- Pick a stone: There are virtually endless options for the center stone; however, people tend to choose durable options like a diamond, sapphire, or ruby. Lab-grown diamonds or moissanite are good budget-friendly options.
- Make the purchase: Most jewelers offer financing options. Also, check for a warranty and consider getting insurance for financial protection in the event the ring is lost, broken, or stolen.
5 Queer-Friendly Engagement Ring Brands
If you’re unsure where to start when selecting an engagement ring, we’ve chosen five of our favorite LGBTQ+ inclusive jewelry brands. This list includes queer-owned and queer-supporting jewelry brands and non-gendered jewelry selections.
Automic Gold Review
Automic Gold is a trans-owned, queer-operated fine jewelry company out of New York City. It offers genderless jewelry in 57 ring sizes, including half and quarter sizes. Each piece is handmade in NYC by expert jewelers using eco-friendly and ethical manufacturing from start to finish. Rings feature lab-made stones, ethically mined diamonds, and recycled metals and gemstones.
When I visited Automic Gold’s website, I found a curated collection of pre-designed engagement rings in traditional styles and unconventional options. While you can shop online, you can also book an appointment to visit the Manhattan showroom. Automic Gold also offers custom designs, which typically take three to eight weeks to make.
Automic Gold carries a curated assortment of traditional and non-traditional engagement rings, but where it really shines is its contemporary options.
Bario Neal Review
Woman-owned Bario Neal is an alternative jewelry designer focused on handmade pieces made with fairmined gold, reclaimed metals, and ethically sourced gemstones. Its designs showcase an appreciation for sustainable sourcing, and its non-gendered designs are a refreshing deviation from an industry that perpetuates heteronormative ideals.
I find a wide selection of engagement rings when visiting Bario Neal’s website. You can shop by style, material, or ready-to-ship rings. Ready-to-ship rings ship within two business days and can also be purchased via the showroom location. This is a fantastic feature for those needing a quick order timeline. You can also design a custom engagement ring, schedule a virtual appointment, or book an in-person appointment at Bario Neal’s Philadelphia or New York locations.
Goldpoint Review
Goldpoint is an independent jewelry designer that offers a lovely selection of gender-neutral engagement rings. Goldpoint was founded in 2022 with the goal of providing unisex jewelry to its New York neighborhood. It uses SCS-certified lab-grown diamonds, post-consumer diamonds and gold, and family-owned sapphire mines. Each piece is made in-house at its Brooklyn location.
If you’re looking for a modern engagement ring, Goldpoint has some truly unique options. Choose between white diamonds or other gemstones, such as salt-and-pepper diamonds and green sapphires. To order, you must select “inquire to order” on Goldpoint’s website or schedule a complimentary appointment at its studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Hera Fine Jewelry Review
Hera’s founder, Lauren Boc, described her own experience of shopping for engagement rings as “exhausting, confusing, and overwhelming.” The experience inspired her to create Hera Fine Jewelry, the self-proclaimed “antithesis of the traditional engagement ring experience.” Hera’s ethos is based on creating heirloom-quality engagement rings with sustainability and inclusivity at the forefront of its design process.
True to its mission, I found browsing Hera’s website to be an easy and enjoyable experience. You can browse genderless rings by stone, style, or silhouette, with sizes ranging from 3.5 to 15 (half and quarter sizes are available). Hera’s education center offers information on its sustainably made, lab-grown diamonds, as well as information on gemstone durability and metal selections. You can customize any ring you see in Hera’s shop, and you can also work with Hera’s designers to create a one-of-a-kind, bespoke engagement ring.
Holden Review
Holden provides genderless, customizable engagement rings direct-to-consumer, starting at $449. How do they offer quality rings at such a reduced price? Here’s how it works: Holden offers six basic shapes and allows its clients to choose width, metal, finish, and engraving. Each ring starts as a 3D print, which is later cast into recycled precious metals. Using 3D design, the brand can offer highly customizable ring options at a fraction of the price.
Holden handcrafts its wedding rings in family-owned NYC workshops using ethically grown lab diamonds and recycled precious metals. Holden is Climate Neutral Certified, meaning the company offsets 100% of its carbon emissions yearly. Holden also donates 1% of all sales to The Trevor Project, the leading crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people.
3 Other Standout Engagement Ring Brands
You may have a particular ring you’re envisioning, or you want to keep searching for that perfectly designed option. Regardless, here are a few other jewelry companies that stand out for their ethically-designed rings and innovative ring-shopping options.
Frank Darling Review
There’s a lot to love about Frank Darling. It makes shopping for custom engagement rings online easy and stress-free. It offers natural and lab-made stones, including diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. It uses 100% recycled gold and platinum sourced from recycled jewelry, industrial products, and electronics to be more Earth-friendly.
When I visited Frank Darling’s website, I saw that you can take a ring quiz to help you sketch out your ideal engagement ring (email is required for results). I also like that Frank Darling has a Try At Home option, where you’ll be sent three replica rings of your choosing to try on. Along the same lines, if you wait too long to pull the trigger before popping the question, you can purchase a placeholder ring that uses sterling silver and cubic zirconia for the proposal. Frank Darling later credits the cost of the ring placeholder towards your future ring purchase.
Jennie Kwon Designs Review
Jennie Kwon Designs offers a wide variety of non-traditional diamond and gemstone engagement rings that look very vintage and very, very cool. This Los Angeles designer’s made-to-order and ready-to-ship rings use ethically-sourced diamonds and gemstones—perfect for brides who prefer a colorful, unique engagement ring.
Engagement rings are handmade, taking up to two weeks to make; however, the jeweler does offer ready-to-ship pieces that ship in one to two business days.
Sofia Kaman Review
Based in Los Angeles, Sofia Kaman makes inclusive jewelry that utilizes conflict-free diamonds and lab-grown diamonds from Diamond Foundry, which boasts a “real-zero” carbon footprint, meaning it has eliminated carbon emissions from its operation.
Sofia Kaman’s eclectic rings are handmade by artisans in their two local studios. Its gender-neutral wedding band collection features a variety of shapes, styles, and sizes.
Best Engagement Rings For Gay Men
Traditionally, when people hear the phrase “engagement ring,” they automatically presume it’s for a woman. But for queer couples, these expectations are thrown out the window. View our complete guide to engagement rings for men.
Why Trust Safe Smart Living?
When writing this article on lesbian engagement rings, Tara wanted to highlight a few aspects that today’s shoppers look for when making purchases. Most people want a brand’s values to align with their own, so Tara focused on finding queer-owned and queer-friendly engagement ring jewelers. She also looked for designers using sustainable, ethical sourcing and transparent sale practices. Tara spent a total of seven hours researching and writing this article to provide the most reliable, up-to-date content for our readers. Research included browsing websites for band styles, stone options, and financing options.
