Courtesy Neil Lane; Inset: Nick Ray/ABC
When L.A.-based jeweler Neil Lane sat down with Bachelor Ben Flajnik in Zermatt, Switzerland to talk love and engagement rings, it felt a bit familiar.
“We had spent time together in Fiji when he was with Ashley [Hebert] and I had to acknowledge that,” Lane tells PEOPLE of last season’s Bachelorette finale, which left Flajnik heartbroken when Hebert sent him packing. “Ben had been sure about Ashley and so I wanted to make sure he was truly in love again.”
Lane’s verdict? Heck yes! “Ben was more mature and was quite honest about the soul-searching he’d done and how he had found someone that he dearly loved in Courtney [Robertson],” he says.
Flajnik and Lane, Courtesy Neil Lane/ABC
To celebrate the couple’s budding romance, the celebrity jeweler handcrafted a glamorous cushion-cut, 3-plus-carat diamond ring accented by 96 round-cut diamonds and set in platinum. The $50,000 bauble highlights an intricate leaf- and floral-inspired design born of Lane’s passion for flowers [he recently planted 10,000 tulips on his L.A. property!] and, he says, “represents their organic and natural love that will always bloom. It’s very romantic and has a vintage feel.”
The three tulip leaves on each side “reflect their past, their present and their remarkable future together,” says Lane, who was thrilled when Robertson “gushed” over the ring — and over her beau. “After Ben finally proposed, they were inseparable and glowing, like love puppies,” Lane recalls. “They seemed very much in love.”
–Elizabeth Leonard
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