For those just interested in the stone information and not the backstory: Citrine, 3.015 carats, design is Gram Princess by Jeff Graham (optimized in GCS to work for citrine RI).

And a quick THANK YOU to this community for pushing me to get that 3k lightning lap - quartz and I are finally getting along thanks to your advice, as you can see from this beauty.

THE BACKSTORY

My grandfather was a hobby gemcutter, and passed away over 20 years ago. When my grandmother finally passed a few years ago and we were clearing the estate, we found several cut stones of his left behind and divided them across the family - and I inherited 3 square-cut citrines.

Last year my partner proposed, and we set our wedding date for November 12, 2023 (yes next week! aaah!). I decided I would commission those citrines into a pendant as my “something old” and “something new”, and a way to symbolically have my grandfather at my wedding.

After I had gotten the pendant back and was showing it to a friend, they pointed out to me that citrine is November’s birthstone, the same month I chose for our wedding… which was a wonderfully spooky coincidence.

My dad is generously paying for our venue, and he has no idea I have started to cut gems like his father used to do. I plan on surprising him by giving him his own square citrine, cut by me, as a thank you for his generosity and for attending. I intentionally chose a princess cut since, after all, I am his little princess. :)

I can’t post my gem anywhere on social media lest my family see it and spoil the surprise, but I know none of them use Lemmy so here I am, sharing with you all!

(side note: handling my grandfather’s stones and seeing that beautiful pendant is what spurred me to finally learn to cut my own, so there’s my origin story too.)