Elizabeth Messina Editorial Shoot

"Fantastic to see some brides of color!! Would love to see more of them on the blog!"

"MEEEEEE TOOO! We're working hard to bring more diversity to the site. It's obnoxious to see only one type of bride and we certainly don't want to be that kind of publication."

"Holy cow this is beyond stunning"

"elizabeth messina + munaluchi bride=magic. delighted and honored to collaborate on this gorgeous shoot. for so many reasons, it was a dream come true. x"

"thank you abby for this beautiful post....i am so touched....xoxoxo"

"The head peace is incredible! Thanks for sharing."

"'bout time. This is stunning. Speechless."

"Thanks!!!! Abby and Elizabeth for this gorgeous post. So delighted...."

"I completely adore this shoot. Amazing job on capturing the beauty of the models."

"Elizabeth!!!! You make my heart melt. GOOOOORGEOUS, stunning work, as always. XO"

"This is so beautiful, I love the simpleness yet elegant shoot."

"All I can utter is WOW! Amazing, as always:)"

"Elizabeth always puts out the most exquisitely beautiful work, soft, heartfelt, genuine, dreamy. And to top it off, she seems like such a beautiful soul, what a gem. LOVE"

"can you list the designers for the gowns?!"

"This is a beautiful, dreamy set. The first cluster of four images are definitely my favorite of them all."

"It's a big heart obsession every time I see Elizabeth's work. She can make a rusted tin bucket sitting in mud look beautiful and romantic."

"INCREDIBLE!! Thank you for the splash of color soooo refreshing! Elizabeth is the master!"

"SO beautiful + beautiful to see diversity! She looks amazing and those shots with the headpiece take your breath away!"

"does anyone know what designer the gown in the fifth image is from?"

"Stunning, probably my favourite shoot ever featured on SMP and also photographed by Elizabeth Messina. Incredible!!!"

"I love this! I would love to know who designed the gowns..."

"Elizabeth your work is absolutely amazing!!!"

"As a woman of color, I very much appreciate seeing this post. These shots are gorgeous btw, regardless of the color of the people in them!"

"I am SWOONing over this Stunning shoot! I love Munalunchi Bride. Elizabeth did an Amazing job!"

"Simply stunning."

"Yay! This is beautiful!"

"Could you please list the dress designers? They are gorgeous!!!"

"Ladies, support this beautiful publication by buying it to have the dress designers at your fingertips. It's so important to keeping start-up niche magazines like this one alive and producing gorgeous features like this one!"

"Beautiful and refreshing! Gorgeous models and of course, succulent photography. Elizabeth, it is evident that you have passion for your work, especially with this shoot-you captured such genuine spirit and grace in your female model! So happy you had this opportunity!"

"Thank you! As a woman of color it is BEYOND refreshing to see such beautiful representation on this blog. Bravo - a STUNNING shoot!"

"i am just absolutely floored and so moved by this feature. someone who looks like...me. =) brown cheeks and all. =)"

"THANK YOU for featuring a brown-skinned woman on your blog. I follow your posts almost daily and if I could make one suggestion, it would be for Style Me Pretty to feature more brown- and black-skinned women in your wedding portrayals."

"This is lovely! I really like when you post the brides of color :) Thanks!!"

"This is absolutely stunning!"

"As a woman of colour, I really appreciate this post. Its so great to see the wedding dresses on darker skinned models as well. Also, the model on this post has the most beautiful smile!"

"Breathtakingly beautiful!"

"This is a truly wonderful shoot. I love it so much. Tres Amazing! X"

"So gorgeous there are no words!!! Simply love each and every photo!!!"

"Tremendous! Very glad I happened upon this, as I too am sick of seeing the same type of bride over and over again."

"This bride is phenomenally gorgeous!"

"Abby, thanks so much for the kind words. I truly appreciate the recognition and support. Elizabeth is a gem...a once-in-a-lifetime photographer/mother/wife/artist that manages to bring emotions to her images. She's that special. I'm so glad we were able to work with her and really excited that you featured the shoot. Thanks again:) The gowns were from Monique Lhuillier, BHLDN, Claire Pettibone, the light blue dress is Romona Keveza, and the gray dress is by Vera Wang."

"This is a beautiful shoot but I'm not surprised it's not an actual African American wedding. If only this site were actually committed to showing more diversity...I don't believe it for a second...as an African American woman I find that most AA brides complain that they so seldom see black weddings displayed and applauded on their favorite blogs when there are so many out there that are never covered unless the photographer shares them on their personal blog. Wish I could believe you Abby but we all know this is a one time moment...when i planned my wedding I tried to find AA wedding inspiration on your site, failed, and quickly moved elsewhere (like The Bride's Cafe, Black Bridal Bliss) and never looked back. If AAs make up 10 percent of the population and you post multiple weddings a day, how is that they make .10 percent of your coverage? Shame on you and I won't applaud you for this...at least admit you don't like to cover them. I find your "yes we should do more" statements laughable because you could, you just don't."

"Beautiful shoot! I'm just a little surprised about the comments. I've seen lots of diversity of couples, especially African American, on blog sites such as The Bride's Cafe. I've always been a fan of Elizabeth's work...love it!"

"Thanks for all of the great comments. This was a gorgeous shoot and it wasn't at all about race. Beautiful is beautiful, end of story. Allegra, I didn't initially want to respond to your comment because well, I completely disagree, but I think it's important to address the assumptions that you are putting out there. We get around 400 weddings a week. We have TWO people, myself and Erin, that go through them so we are generally completely overwhelmed with all of the weddings that come in the door. But we look at each and every one of them carefully and thoughtfully. We approve and publish the ones that we feel represent the SMP bride...no matter of budget, of race, of style, of anything. We don't have enough manpower to scour the web every day for specific content. It does bother me when I don't see enough color on our site. And I wish that I had more hours in a day to seek out content. But race is never going to be a determining factor as to whether a wedding goes up on our site. Black, white, hispanic makes no difference to us, as we simply look for beautiful weddings. We HAVE sent out content calls to our 1600 + vendors for more brides of diverse races and cultures and we're slowly getting more and more in. With that said, we're a tiny ship here at SMP and at this point, we are doing what we can. This post wasn't about applauding me or SMP. It was simply about a gorgeous shoot done for a wonderful publication by an amazing artist."

"EVERYTHING here is spectacular! The fascinator, the perfect gown, the absurd beauty of the bride herself, the setting... this is radiant."

"Abby, I appreciate your response. I'm sorry that you disagree and I do understand that managing a blog like this can take a lot of work and things may get overlooked, but what I failed to mention is that I've worked in the bridal industry for years (not a vendor but work with them often) and one thing I've commonly heard from photographers and brides is that the AA weddings are submitted and denied by bloggers/sites so much that they just don't bother submitting them anymore. I wish I could believe that it was just about style but when i go on photographer's sites, ESSENCE's site, and blogs like The Bride's Cafe and Black Bridal Bliss I see beautiful weddings in every style and budget -- all the time. You say you publish the weddings you "feel represent the SMP bride" but what I'm saying is that may be true, but one must then have to ask, is the SMP bride black? Seems like the answer would be no. I just can't buy the argument that it's hard to find diversity in weddings anymore -- it's everywhere! I hate to make this racial and take away from this lovely shoot, but sadly, it's just not mentioned enough."

"For anyone that would love to chat with SMP more about diversity and what we can do to make SMP a space where everyone feels welcomed and represented, I'd be happy to continue the discussion via email. With that said, I don't want to turn this post into a topic on race as Style Me Pretty embraces brides and grooms of any color, any budget, any sexual or religious background. Bottom line. This is a lovely, lovely feature and I want the focus to be on the beauty of the photographs and the gorgeous people + fashions inside.The SMP bride is a bride that wants their wedding to be personal, beautiful and style savvy. Simple as that. My email is abbyatstylemeprettydotcom if you'd like to chat more!! Thanks again guys for all of the awesome comments!"

"My god she is stunning."

"this is a beautiful photo shoot no matter what color the model is and if it was another model of another color still would have been beautiful, ( I'm black myself)"

"I absolutely love the last headpiece (the one with with the flowers and big feather) but I can't find it on the Twigs & Honey site anymore. Anyone know if I could still get it somewhere?"

"I just want to know who designed the dresses!"

"there are some great blogs with women of color i run a blog for brides particularly of color and there are some if you type them in to google."

"Style Me Pretty...just a note of thanks. Not only is this site full of wonderful resources, beautiful stories, and stunning images, your commitment to diversity is unparalleled. You do it in a way that is not so "look at us, we featured one Asian person this year! We're so multi-culti!" but more genuine and sincere. Keep up the great work."

"Wow - at first I thought this was Paris. Because the opening shot looks like a passage at Palais Royale. Such a lovely shoot - and thank you for posting more "diverse" beautiful brides!"

"Well done! Does anyone know who is the designer to the dress that has lace straps with a slight shimmery bodice? I must see it in person!"

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