A first consultation with us is a conversation, not a sales pitch, and it doesn't commit you to anything beyond turning up and talking honestly about what you want. We know that's easy to say and harder to quite believe until you've sat through one, so here's what actually happens.
What the meeting is for
We use the time to understand three things: your taste, your budget, and how the piece will actually live once it's made. That means looking at reference images together, talking through how and when you'd wear it, and finding out whether you're bringing anything of your own to the design; an inherited stone, a preference for a particular metal, a piece you'd like to reuse. We hold these conversations as a video call or in person at our Marylebone shop, whichever suits you better, and they typically run forty-five minutes to an hour. By the end, we should have enough to put together a proper design brief for you to look over, rather than a vague idea we're hoping will turn into something later.
Nothing is made and no significant decision is locked in during this meeting. It exists to turn a feeling; "something like this, but simpler," or "I know I want cultured diamonds but not much else" into something we can genuinely design against.
What to bring
You'll get more out of the conversation, and any figures we give you afterwards will be more accurate, if you bring a few things along. Reference images help enormously, even rough or unrelated ones; a setting you like from one piece, a stone shape from another. An honest sense of your budget matters more than almost anything else we discuss, because a real number lets us design sensibly toward it from the outset, whereas a vague or understated one usually just delays the moment a design has to be scaled back, often after you've already fallen for it. If you're hoping to use a family stone or your own gold, bring it, or bring clear photographs and details, since that changes what's possible and we'd rather know from the start than discover it partway through.
You don't need a finished vision. Most people who sit down with us have a feeling rather than a design, and that's exactly the raw material a first conversation is built to work with.
What we'll ask, and what you should ask us
Beyond taste, expect us to ask about your budget and whether it's a firm ceiling or has some give, how and when you'll actually wear the piece, whether there's an occasion or date shaping the timeline, and any practical details; an active job, existing rings it needs to sit alongside that affect what design choices make sense.
It's just as much your meeting as ours, so ask us things too. What does a realistic timeline look like for what you have in mind. How is pricing structured, and is there a separate design fee, how many rounds of revision are included or when a deposit is needed, how much, and what it covers. We'd rather answer these plainly at the outset than leave them for later, since unclear answers on cost and revisions are exactly where disputes tend to start in bespoke work generally.
For a broader look at how first consultations typically work across the industry, including deposit stages and a few red flags worth knowing about, our reference site Commissioned has a fuller guide to what happens at a first meeting.
Does it cost anything, and does it commit you to anything
A first consultation with us costs nothing, whether it's a video call or a visit to the shop. Coming in to talk to us doesn't obligate you to commission a piece. You're free to leave, think it over, talk to other jewellers, or simply decide it isn't the right time, there's no pressure, and nothing owed, since there was never a fee to begin with. The only deposit we ask for comes later in the process, once you're happy with the design, and it's there specifically to secure your stone. It's generally half the stone's cost, though we're flexible where that helps, and there's no separate design deposit before it.
If you'd like to start
If you have an idea, a stone, or just a feeling about what you'd like to wear, we'd like to hear it. A bespoke consultation with us is the natural place to begin, with no obligation attached to that first conversation.