Not every engagement ring is a piece of royal history, but every engagement ring is special in its own way. Kate Middleton’s is, though, and her famous sapphire and diamond sparkler needs constant care and is said to be hard to wear.
Kate Middleton on the 16th of June 2025
In 2010, Prince William asked Kate to marry him with a very meaningful ring. It was the same ring that his father, Prince Charles, gave to his mother, Lady Diana Spencer, in 1981. The center of the ring has a 12-carat oval Ceylon sapphire surrounded by a halo of 14 diamonds set in 18k white gold. It’s a beautiful piece by anyone’s standards. Ben Roberts, the managing director of Clogau, the brand that makes the Welsh gold that Brides says is often used in British royals’ engagement rings, says, “Most people don’t know how much work it takes to keep an heirloom in good shape every day.”
Kate Middleton on the 20th of April 2023
Roberts told Hello!, “Even without any changes, taking care of an heirloom of such value is hard.” “Kate and her team will need to take care of it by doing regular inspections and in-depth evaluations, cleaning it gently to bring back its shine, and, if necessary, hiring professionals to fix it up to make sure it lasts.”
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William proposed more than 13 years after Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997. In their first interview after getting engaged, William told ITV News that he chose to propose with his mother’s famous engagement ring while on vacation in Kenya in October 2010. He said, “obviously, she’s not going to be around to share in any of the fun and excitement of all this.” This is how I keep her kind of close to it all.
Princess Diana with her engagement ring on
According to Vogue, the ring is now worth about $517,000. It was inspired by a brooch that Prince Albert asked British jeweler Garrard to make for his future wife, Queen Victoria, as a wedding gift in 1840. Victoria loved the piece so much that she wore it as her “something blue” on her wedding day. She wore it until she died. Queen Elizabeth got the brooch as a gift and wore it a lot. It is said that her son Charles got the idea for engagement rings for Diana from that sapphire and diamond piece. Hello! says that Diana’s ring was worth $37,806 in 1981.
Kate Middleton on the 3rd of October, 2023
Kate said in an interview with ITV News in 2010 that her engagement ring was “beautiful” and that she hoped she would “look after it.” The Princess of Wales didn’t talk about her engagement ring again for 13 years. It wasn’t until April 2023 that she went to the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil. According to Newsweek, Kate told William during this visit that she and her late mother-in-law Diana wore the same size ring. When William proposed with the sapphire and diamond sparkler, it didn’t need to be resized.
On October 9, 2018, Kate Middleton
The future queen said, “It’s an honor to be able to wear it,” and called her ring “very, very special.” Kate said she “never, sadly, got to meet her,” but that Diana would have been “brilliant” as a grandmother.
