First thing to do is to choose what kind of stone is going to be used as a center of ring building process. There is much different kind of gemstones available for this purpose like traditional diamonds, opals, emeralds or you can choose a black pearl if wish. Take your time to make up your mind, since the ring is probably going to see many generations of your family. Think about it, if you make this correctly you can set a cornerstone so to speak to a trading, which is going to last several centuries. How great would that be?
Then you are going to choose the material of the ring itself. The most common choice is gold, but if you want more contemporary look, consider silver, white gold or platinum. In my opinion, black diamond set in a platinum ring is something that is so stunning you almost go blind just looking at it, but everyone has a different taste, so maybe you would like to have a pink diamond 18 carat gold ring. Whatever you like, you can get, that's the beauty when you build your own engagement rings.
The best, and most time and money saving way, to start your designing process