Style Me Pretty, arguably one of the most influential websites in the wedding industry has announced today that the popular wedding inspiration website would be going dark permanently on April 30th. Here’s what we know.
Since its start in 2007, Style Me Pretty has been a big influencer in the wedding photography world. By having heavily curated content, Style Me Pretty was seen by many wedding photographers as the “unicorn” of online wedding publications, and a goal of many photographers to get a feature on the popular wedding blog.
Though no reason was given, followers of Style Me Pretty’s Instagram account (which boasts 1 million followers), were told in a post earlier today that no new stories or posts would occur after today, and that users would have up until the end of the month to screenshot any inspiration before the Instagram account and website go dark. Email newsletter subscribers also woke up to an email explaining that the closing was a “difficult decision.”
For brides and photographers alike, this is a shocking turn of events for the ultra-popular wedding website. The site operates under a subsidiary of Verizon and boasts upward of 18 million views a month.
Wedding photographers will have to look elsewhere if they want their work featured on an influential wedding website. So long Style Me Pretty, you had a good run.
That's an abrupt ending...I get the feeling that someone has a terminal illness or going to jail for a good stretch.
Eek. I don't hope for a terminal illness. Big fines for not disclosing paid posting though would be okay with me.
I'd like to hope that they're closing because they've been violating advertising laws. The vast majority of their content is pay for play - curated, sure, but still just advertising. I'm not a fan of running what is essentially a series of commercials but pretending that it isn't.
Schadenfreude, I know, but they are part of the problem with the wedding photography industry - a whole raft of people making money off photographers without doing much at all.
Curious as to what their contracts look like with the photographers that just paid $1000's of to get featured. Anyone?
Grrrr.
I read an article about that a while back too. Good site that uses dubious methods for achieving it.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention though Danette - had been slowly dropping out of this world.
My business has been featured in Style Me Pretty many times and never once have I paid for a feature. I did pay to be listed in their Black Book for a while, but that’s hardly unusual.
Thanks for jumping in. Are you a wedding photographer Mekala?
No, I design luxury wedding invitations (photographed by wedding photographers ;)
Gotcha! Is there a chance that those photographers paid to have the wedding featured and all of the vendors, like venue, flowers etc were benefited? We've paid to have an add in a bridal show advertorial magazine and our flower, hair invites etc were featured, but didn't pay. We also didn't tell the other vendors that we paid. Even though all of our photographer buddies knew.
I clearly have a bias against these types of 'enterprises.' I don't mean to come off crass or short with you.
I understand what you're saying but I can say with 100% certainty none of them were paid features. Most of the submissions were done by the wedding planner and I've submitted on my own as well. You upload images on their submissions page and they respond saying "You've been accepted! Your feature will go live May 15, 2017" simple as that.
Most of the vendors I work with go our start on SMP and grew around the same time they did, so we've seen them grow and change of the years. Never have I felt like they were deceptive - less beneficial after a certain point sure, but never shady.
Thanks Mark!
Thanks for taking the time to explain your situation!
Style Me Pretty only post bright and airy images I personally prefer mywed.com
Your headline needs a comma.
Smoke a joint and it won't matter anymore...
is that an invite?
It’s an essential appositive, so no, it doesn’t need a comma.
It reads so funky because the appositive isn't obvious because it's a command phrase that so happens to be a name.
Style Me Pretty, Popular Wedding Photography Inspiration Site, is Closing at the End of the Month
I've had a couple of features on SMP (I'm a photographer) and neither were paid for.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
I wonder if we will ever find out why the change maybe they were just over it???