As many of you may know, last summer we compiled a list of 6 promises to champion a true change against racism and inequality in the wedding community. And while we are only just beginning, we would like to invite you further into the conversation and share some of the initiatives that we are working on to ensure that Style Me Pretty is at the forefront of a deep, long lasting industry-wide change.
Before we dig in, we would like to extend a heartfelt thank you. To you…our readers. Who were willing to share their experiences, frustrations, their anger and pain. Who were willing to offer ideas, brainstorm with our staff, take time out of your very busy worlds to help us understand how deep the scars of racism go and what steps we can take to begin to heal. Without the help and patience of all of you – along with our incredible team of Diversity Panel members (more on these rockstars below) – we would be ill equipped to really understand the nuances of how racism big and small has affected our community.
And now, it’s time to report back to you on exactly what changes have been made since our promises made in June of 2020. As always, this is an ongoing and open conversation and we welcome any and all thoughts as to how we can better ourselves and continue to invoke meaningful, important changes within the wedding industry
Promise 1: Champion Black vendors and ensure their work is regularly celebrated on SMP.com
In order to ensure the work of the BIPOC community is regularly celebrated on SMP.com, we have created a masterlist of minority vendors, sourced from our own research, roundups of Black wedding vendors, and more. We intend to use this masterlist to ensure we are featuring minority vendors as often as possible – if we need to source more content, or reach out to vendors for advice-driven pieces, we can refer back to our masterlist.
We also want to mention that after our promises went live back in June, we have received an outpouring of submissions featuring Black couples and POC couples, but also from minority vendors (self-identified). We are still in the process of working internally with our Diversity Panel on how to best identify minority vendors who submit to SMP. This will be one our main focuses as we move forward in the New Year.
Promise 2: Undertake a Diversity Audit of all content posted in 2020 to date
You may remember us sharing the disappointing results of our first Diversity Audit back in August. But now, we are sharing our latest results below that reflect the content changes we have made since then. While this may only be one small piece of the puzzle, we are very proud of how far we’ve come in doing our part to accurately portray the representation of BIPOC couples on our site.
In the period from January 2020 to May 2020, prior to our commitment, there was a total of 282 post, of which 230 featured a bride or groom. The breakdown of which is as follows:
- White / Caucasian: 158 (69%)
- Asian: 40 (17%)
- Black / African American: 20 (9%)
- Hispanic / Latino: 12 (5%)
In the period from July 2020 through December 2020, there was a total of 245 posts, of which 217 featured a bride or groom. The breakdown of which is as follows:
*We would like to preface this by noting that we set ourselves a goal for our numbers to be in line with the US census.
- White / Caucasian: 103 (47%)
- Asian: 18 (17%)
- Black / African American: 66 (31%)
- Hispanic / Latino: 11 (5%)
Between January to May 2020, only 2% of the celebrations we published were same sex weddings. In June 2020, this increased to 4%, however we continue to face challenges in the representation of Same-Sex BIPOC couples. Despite our best efforts to actively seek out this specific content, we unfortunately do not receive enough of these submissions on a regular basis. This will be another main area of focus for us in 2021. In the meantime, we encourage couples and vendors alike to please submit weddings and styled shoots that feature same-sex BIPOC couples for consideration to SMP. We will continue to produce a diversity audit every 6 months and will, of course, be sharing the results publicly with our community.
Promise 3: Actively seek out and feature more weddings of BIPOC couples
Following on from our promise to audit our content and share the results, we promise to continue to do better. Our overarching goal with this promise is to ensure that every person, no matter the color of their skin, their culture, their sexual orientation, gender identity or their religion, feels comfortable, at home and inspired when they read Style Me Pretty.
As part of this, we are committed to continuing to actively seek, and even more regularly featuring the weddings of Black, biracial, and other minority couples. We want to ensure that our readers regularly see themselves in the content of our site and on our social channels, and so realize the need for our content to be more representative of the different ethnicities that make up the population around us.
As mentioned above, after sharing our initiative back in June, we have received so many more submissions featuring BIPOC couples than ever before, and it’s definitely shown through our Audit results. But we need to keep up the pace! So we kindly ask for your help once again to please, submit, submit, submit!
A Note on Plantation Weddings – As of January 2020, we have ceased publishing any wedding or styled shoot content that occurred at a plantation venue. Despite our best efforts and due diligence, some venues with a history of slavery have admittedly slipped through the cracks. This is why we have since created a mandatory checkbox for vendors when submitting a feature to us that confirms the images were not taken at a plantation venue. We have been consulting with a professional for the last few months and working with our Diversity Panel specifically on this sensitive subject – so you can expect more to come on this soon.
Promise 4: Educate and empower our staff to take action against racism in our industry
We believe that change begins with us, not just as an organization, but also as a group of individuals who represent Style Me Pretty. We know it’s incredibly important to educate ourselves on the systemic racism faced by Black individuals, and use both our individual and collective voices to take a stand.
As part of our internal commitment, we’ve opened up the conversation within our team to discuss how we can be a true partner to the BIPOC communities, and created these 6 promises together as a pact for us to all do better. We’ve encouraged every member of our team to be part of this movement by taking time to do their research, contribute to our diversity panel discussions, and attend webinars so they can make changes within their day to day processes that have previously reinforced the inequality within our industry.
Finally we have made a donation in each of our employee’s names to the Black Lives Matter cause of their choice. Each year, we will continue to do the same, giving each employee $100 to donate to the charitable organization of their choice. We believe that words without action are fleeting in the wind, so if you can we encourage you to also join us in donating to one of the following organizations:
Promise 5: Incorporate a wider range of voices and increase BIPOC authors and contributors throughout SMP
In and effort to incorporate a wider range of voices and increase BIPOC authors and contributors throughout SMP, we’ve brought on 4 wonderful contract writers, all of whom are a part of the BIPOC community, to contribute 101 tip-driven content on an ongoing basis, further establishing themselves as experts in their field. We’re excited to continue recruiting new vendors as we move forward with this initiative – sharing their talent, wisdom, tips and tricks with our readers! If you know someone in the BIPOC community who might be interested, or if you yourself are interested in contributing to SMP, please reach out to lauren@stylemepretty.com for more information.
Promise 6: Develop a Diversity Panel with our vendor partners to keep the conversation top of mind
In our final promise, we committed to keeping the conversation going and ensuring we don’t just speak about change – but actually make it happen. Since then, we’ve assembled a Diversity Panel consisting of the most incredible group of professionals, representing BIPOC voices and views within our industry, who continue to hold us accountable for the promises we’ve made. To ensure our commitments align with their current needs, we plan to host one Diversity Panel discussion per quarter. During our past two meetings, we’ve been fortunate enough to listen to their stories, learn how to become a better ally, and collaborate to foster the conversation into meaningful action. For example, as a result of our past discussions, we have actioned the above mentioned items – such as adding an optional ethnicity indicator on our Little Black Book membership application, adding the mandatory ‘non-plantation wedding’ checkbox for submissions, and hiring 4 BIPOC contributing authors to the SMP team to name a few.
Our Diversity Panelists have brought incredibly important topics to the table, ranging from what terminology to use when speaking about BIPOC couples and individuals, all the way to how our industry can foster the growth of new and budding BIPOC vendors. Raw reactions and unfiltered opinions flow openly as Panelists have discussed personal experiences working at specific venues with histories that are extremely hurtful to Black vendors. They’ve expressed their concerns about the lack of representation for LGBTQ content on social media, and their frustrations surrounding the overall absence of sufficient diversity demonstrated at industry-wide events. Our panelists have given us a better idea of how to measure the success in our Promises, continue to educate us on the severity of the issues they face, and encourage us to take our place as a leader in our community – further holding us accountable for the commitments we’ve made.
With gratitude, we want to take a moment now to publicly list the amazing members of our Diversity Panel below:
Abul is a top wedding photographer in the London area, has travelled all over the globe photographing beautiful couples, and has been featured by Nikon, Rangefinder, Harpers Bazaar, Brides Magazine, and Esquire.
Andrew is a top DC Event and Wedding Planner with an impressive 13 years of experience creating incredible and impeccable events.
Caroline is a fine art wedding photographer with over a decade of experience traveling all over the world to capture incredibly beautiful events.
Jacqueline is a top wedding designer and planner hailing from Los Angeles – her experience is rooted in the luxury hospitality industry and her eye for design paired with flawless event execution is the perfect combination.
Joy is a celebrity wedding designer and editorial stylist – her unique concepts and innovative approach to design has earned her international praise as a trendsetter in the wedding industry.
Nicole has been named one of the Top Wedding Planners in Canada as a top Black wedding industry professional by Martha Stewart Weddings, Brides, Wedding Chicks, Wedding Sparrow and many more.
Rebecca is an internationally acclaimed destination wedding photographer with a B.A. from NYU and has been named one of the top wedding photographers in the world by Harper’s Bazaar, BRIDES and Destination Weddings Magazine.
Sacia is a wedding photographer who resides in Charleston, South Carolina – she not only captures such lovely and intimate events, but is also known for her liberating and beautiful boudoir sessions.
Ty is a classic fine art film photographer located in the Bay Area who also travels throughout the United States. She is an educator and mentor who has taught photography related classes for the past 7 years.
We couldn’t be more appreciative of our panelists who have selflessly aided SMP in getting where we are today, and where we’ll continue to go in the fight against racism. Our goal in 2021 is to extend the reach of our Diversity Panel outside of SMP internal employees to the wider SMP community, please stay tuned for more info. If you’re interested in joining our Diversity Panel and would like to learn more about the process – please email megan@stylempretty.com
To read more about Style Me Pretty’s Diversity Policy – please click here!
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