After all my searching, I found the perfect setting at Brilliant Earth.  I fell in love, hard:

I also liked the stance they took on ethical diamond mining. Unfortunately, they were a bit out of our price range. I also wanted to see what we were buying before making a commitment. I’ve read a lot of stories about people having a great experience buying diamonds online, and I’m sure it’s all true. It just makes me nervous. The plus side is that this was a chance for us to avoid the chain stores and support a local business!

We took a weekday in January to go around and visit several local jewelers. Most didn’t have a style like the one I wanted in stock. They were very willing to custom make my ring, but it cut into our budget. Then we went to Rainbow Jewelers. The staff there was extremely helpful and went through several catalogs to find the perfect setting. We found one that looked very similar to the ring above at half the cost of a custom order. Yay! We were able to pick out a beautiful stone and we sealed the deal.

Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. We got a call from the jeweler about 3 days later with some bad news…