My friends and I learned a lot about jewelers when we were all getting married several years ago. Now that my nieces and nephews, and some of my friends’ older kids are starting to get married, I thought I’d share some of what we all learned about wedding rings along the way.

Do some research on the different jewelry stores that sell wedding band . Nowadays, with most jewelry stores having great websites, you can really see what type of training the jewelry store employees go through, and the corporate mindset when it comes to their customers.

Look at the styles of wedding rings that are on the store’s websites and choose some stores that have several different wedding ring styles that you like. Just like any website, sometimes the styles online aren’t available in the store once you get there, so keep an open mind and try to focus on the general style of wedding rings.

When you’ve chosen some jewelry stores you’d like to visit, try to make a couple visits without your fiancé before really going in to seriously look. Go during off hours and during weekends. At this point, what you’re looking for is their customer service. How do they treat you when you’re just looking by yourself? How are they treating other customers, especially couples that are obviously shopping for their wedding rings?

Ask a few questions that they might not get every day. Any jewelry store sales person will know some things about diamonds and wedding rings, but ask some questions about a less popular stones, such as the difference between blue topaz and aquamarine. This will give you an idea about how knowledgeable they are about jewelry in general, as well as how passionate they might be about sharing the information. Just like any job, they get the same questions over and over again. If they perk up when you start asking questions about peridots for a change, you might have found a really helpful and knowledgeable person to work with when choosing your wedding ring.

When you find jewelry stores or salespeople that you like, make sure to take their card and write a few notes on the back about why you liked them. This will help you decide what stores you would like to visit when you shop for your wedding rings with your fiancé.