How many CAD revisions am I usually entitled to?

Most bespoke processes include one to three rounds of CAD revision within the quoted design fee, covering changes to proportions, stone position or setting style. Changes requested after you've formally approved the CAD file, or a change of direction rather than a refinement, are usually charged as extra.

Do I get to choose my own diamond or gemstone?

In most bespoke processes, yes, within a budget and quality range you agree at the brief stage. The jeweller typically sources a shortlist of certified stones for you to compare — by cut, colour, clarity and carat — rather than presenting one option, though very rare or unusual stones may take longer to source or need to be chosen from fewer options.

What's the difference between casting and hand fabrication in this process?

Casting produces the piece from a mould made from the approved CAD file, which is faster and suits most designs well. Hand fabrication builds the piece from raw metal by hand, which takes longer and costs more but is sometimes chosen for specific structural or finishing reasons. Which method suits a given design is usually a workshop decision, though you can ask which is being used and why.

Can I change my mind after approving the CAD design?

You can, but it usually costs more and adds time, since metal, casting, or hand fabrication work may already be underway or scheduled. This is why the CAD stage is treated as the main decision point in the whole process — it's the last point where changes are cheap.

Do I need to be present for every stage?

No. You're typically involved at the brief, the CAD approval, and collection, with an optional stone-selection step in between. The making, setting, finishing and hallmarking stages happen at the workshop without you, though a good jeweller will update you if anything changes the timeline.

How does commissioning a bespoke ring actually work?

A bespoke ring commission is not a single transaction but a sequence of distinct stages, each with its own decisions, and knowing what happens at each one — and which parts you actually control — makes the process far less opaque, whether you're commissioning your first piece or trying to judge whether a quote and timeline are reasonable.

Consultation

The process begins with a conversation, in person or remotely, about what you want and why. A good consultation covers your taste (styles you're drawn to and ones you're not), practical wearing habits (an active job, existing rings worn alongside it, whether you tend to catch settings on things), budget, and any starting material — an heirloom stone, a specific gemstone you've already bought, a metal preference.

This stage is exploratory rather than committal. You are not agreeing to a price or a design yet; you're giving the jeweller enough to propose one. Many jewellers don't charge for a first consultation, though some charge a modest fee, typically in the region of £25–£200, that is credited against the final piece if you go ahead.

The brief

From the consultation, the jeweller writes up a brief: the design direction, rough budget, stone parameters, and timeline. You review and agree this before any design work begins. The brief is the reference point everyone works from for the rest of the commission, so it's worth being honest here about budget and priorities rather than in later stages — a brief that says "flexible budget" when it isn't tends to produce a design that then needs cutting back at the costly CAD-revision stage instead of the cheap conversation stage.

A deposit is usually taken at this point, or shortly after, to secure design time and begin work — commonly a design deposit in the range of £250–£400, which is later credited against the total, followed by a larger production deposit, often around 50% of the full price, once the design itself is approved.

Design and CAD

The jeweller develops your brief into a design, almost always using CAD (computer-aided design) today rather than hand sketches alone, since CAD lets you see a realistic 3D render of proportions, stone placement and profile before anything physical is made. You'll typically see renders from multiple angles, and sometimes a 3D-printed resin model you can try on for scale and fit.

This is the stage with the most back-and-forth. Expect one to three rounds of revision as part of the standard design fee — adjusting the height of a setting, the width of a band, the angle a stone sits at — with further changes usually chargeable once you've formally signed off. CAD is the point in the whole process where changes are cheapest, because nothing physical has been committed yet; it is worth taking your time here rather than rushing to approval.

Your decision point: you approve the final CAD file. This is the single most consequential approval in the process, since the piece is built to match it.

Stone sourcing

If the design involves a stone you don't already own, the jeweller sources options against the parameters agreed in your brief — cut, colour, clarity, carat, and certification (typically GIA or IGI for diamonds). You're usually shown a shortlist to choose from, rather than a single stone, so you can compare like-for-like against your budget.

Sourcing timing varies a lot. A well-specified, commercially available diamond might be sourced in a matter of days; an unusual coloured stone, a specific cut that's gone out of fashion, or a particularly large or high-quality stone can take considerably longer and may run in parallel with the CAD stage to avoid delaying the whole commission.

Casting or hand fabrication

Once the CAD is approved and stones are confirmed, the physical piece is made. Most designs are cast: a mould is made from the CAD file, and metal is cast into it, which is efficient and well suited to the vast majority of ring designs. Some pieces — often those with particular structural demands, certain finishing techniques, or a workshop's specific approach — are hand-fabricated instead, built up from raw metal by hand. Hand fabrication takes meaningfully longer and costs more, but isn't inherently "better"; it's a different technique suited to different jobs, and which one is used is generally the workshop's call based on the design rather than a choice you make directly.

Stone setting

The sourced stones are set into the cast or fabricated piece. This is skilled, largely manual work, and the setting style specified at the design stage — claw, pavé, bezel, channel and so on — determines both how long it takes and how the finished piece will look and wear. Complex multi-stone settings add meaningfully more time here than a single central stone.

Finishing

The piece is polished, and any additional detailing — engraving, texturing, milgrain edging — is completed. This is also the stage where the ring is checked over structurally: that claws sit correctly, that the band is even, that nothing was disturbed during setting.

Hallmarking

Where the finished piece meets the legal weight threshold — gold over 1g, silver over 7.78g, platinum over 0.5g, palladium over 1g — it must go to a UK assay office (London, Birmingham, Sheffield or Edinburgh) to be hallmarked before it can lawfully be sold as that metal, under the Hallmarking Act 1973. Turnaround at the assay office itself varies by service level, from same-day express options to around one to two weeks for standard turnaround, and this sits as a largely fixed delay near the end of the timeline that doesn't compress much regardless of how the rest of the process has gone.

Collection

You try the finished, hallmarked piece on and take it home. A reputable jeweller will also cover practical aftercare at this point — cleaning, resizing policy, insurance valuation documentation — since a bespoke piece typically comes with a fresh valuation for insurance purposes given it has no prior sale history to reference.

What you actually control, in summary

Across the whole process, your real decision points are narrower than the number of stages suggests: the brief, the CAD approval, sometimes a stone shortlist, and the final collection. Sourcing, casting or fabrication, setting, finishing and hallmarking happen at the workshop without your day-to-day input. Understanding this in advance is useful mainly because it tells you where to spend your attention — the brief and the CAD stage are where care pays off, since they're the cheap-to-change points; everything after CAD approval is comparatively expensive and slow to unwind.

The bottom line

A bespoke ring commission moves through a consistent sequence — consultation, brief, CAD, stone sourcing, making, setting, finishing, hallmarking, collection — and while the exact order of stone sourcing and CAD can overlap, the underlying logic doesn't change much between workshops. The two points that matter most for you as the client are the brief, where honesty about budget and priorities saves later friction, and CAD approval, which is your last inexpensive opportunity to change your mind. Everything after that is largely the workshop translating an agreed design into a physical, hallmarked ring.