After going to Diamonds Direct, Schwartzchild, and a few other places window shopping, all the three stone arrangements I saw were in a row. I thought maybe we could do a different setup, such as the diamond being in the center with the two sapphires off to the side.
However, after 4 straight hours of Scott patiently dealt with my "try that...oh ... no... that looks weird" over and over again it suddenly dawned on me:
1) Any stones set away from the band such as the offset sapphires would require excess material. This DOES indeed look weird. from all sides. No bueno.
2) Any excess material used to support the stones costs more. If it looked amazing, I would definitely be down... but it didn't. So I wasn't.
3) The more I thought about how I saw all the other 3 stone setups where the stones are in a row, the more I realized....there's are reasons for that, including symmetrical aesthetics, ease of implementing stone supports as they're right above the band, and it will fit a wedding band instead of having the stones hang over and cover it...not to mention the offset would have been a huge snag point for threads and other things...
SO! The following images show the new design progression! :) I'm excited!!!