Ryan Reynolds Regrets Plantation Wedding

Actor Ryan Reynolds has expressed regret for holding his and Blake Lively’s wedding on a plantation.

The couple got married at Boone Hall back in 2012. Boone Hall is a former slave plantation in South Carolina. The couple were one of many who have tied the knot here, and on slave plantations across the United States. The official website has a tab labeled “weddings” prominently displayed on its homepage. Clicking on the tab takes you too a promotional video of white couples on their special day. Lower down on the homepage are tabs for slavery exhibits, and talks on Gullah culture adopted by the slaves that were imprisoned at Boone Hall.

In an interview with Fast Company Reynolds said “It’s something we’ll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for. It’s impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy. Years ago we got married again at home—but shame works in weird ways. A giant fucking mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn’t mean you won’t fuck up again. But repatterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn’t end.”

Pinterest also publicly distanced themselves from plantation weddings back in December 2019.

Pinterest and The Knot announced that they would reject advertisements from such sites, and would regulate the way they were discussed on both platforms. In a statement on the move the chief marketing officer for The Knot said “we want to make sure we’re serving all our couples and that they don’t feel in any way discriminated against.” 

It appears the couple have attempted to do better in the years since the wedding. They donated $1million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and have publicly spoken about racism and Black Lives Matter movement.