Despite their popularity, don’t expect to see any images of the wedding between Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively on sites like Pinterest and The Knot any time soon. The two A-listers said their vows in 2012 at the Boone Hall Plantation in Charleston. Images from plantation weddings like this have been recently banned from several prominent websites. As E! Online points out, the decision has led to both praise and outcry from groups on both sides of the issue.
As far as the ban, the decision comes from the fact that plantations in the south thrived on using slave labor, which turned in a substantial profit for the white landowners and their families. In recent years, the picturesque settings have become a draw for weddings, but Civil Rights organizations like Color of Change say they’re nothing but “physical reminders of one of the most horrific human rights abuses the world has ever seen.”
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A spokesman for Pinterest also addressed the site’s ban on plantation weddings, which read: “Weddings should be a symbol of love and unity. Plantations represent none of those things. We are working to limit the distribution of this content and accounts across our platform, and continue to not accept advertisements for them.”
Similarly, The Knot has said that their site won’t tolerate any “use language that glorifies, celebrates, or romanticizes Southern plantation history.”
The Hollywood power couple recently surprised fans in October when they announced that they’d welcomed their third child months earlier. Though Lively’s pregnancy was known, it proved to be another example of how the two have managed to maintain their privacy despite living very public lives.
Speaking of, Lively did recently delete all of her Instagram posts last month, save for a trailer for her upcoming film, The Rhythm Section. There was no reason given for Lively’s sudden scrubbing of her account, although she did something similar when she was promoting A Simple Favor last year.
Lively is also reportedly being sought out to return for a reboot of Gossip Girl that’s slated for HBO Max, an upcoming streaming service. Leighton Meester, who co-starred with Lively in the classic teen drama. No word on if either of the actresses will return to their roles, but The Good Place star Kristen Bell will be reprising her role as the narrator.
