She’s Pretty and Black Owned: Meet Jalissa Carter
Pretty and Black Owned is a celebration of brilliance, beauty, and bold business moves. This series spotlights Black women who are building powerful brands, creating impact, and owning their lane with confidence and purpose. From passion to profit, these women represent what it looks like to lead, thrive, and win.
WEDLOPE is a Luxury Elopement Experience and Wellness Practice founded in 2016, originally centered on weddings and elopements, but now evolved into something deeper. It offers ceremonial experiences for women who have done the inner work and deserve a moment to honor that transformation. Instead of focusing only on external details like the perfect bouquet, WEDLOPE invites women to center themselves first so they don’t lose who they are at the altar or in partnership. Through coaching, poetry, and intentional ceremonies, the experience becomes both a celebration and a return to self. This work is also expanding into community spaces, with a current collaboration at a regional art museum to host a poetry and wellness experience alongside a live ceremonial activation, blending art, healing, and celebration in a meaningful way.
What inspired the start of Wedlope?
WEDLOPE was born from a deeply personal realization — that women spend months planning the perfect ceremony and almost no time preparing the most important thing: themselves. After 15 years of marriage, a career as an ordained celebrant, and over a decade coaching women through life’s most meaningful transitions, I saw the gap clearly. Couples were choosing flowers while losing themselves. WEDLOPE exists to close that gap — to bring the same intentionality we pour into ceremonies into the inner lives of the people standing at the altar. The name itself is the philosophy: elope from the noise of expectation, performance, and other people’s timelines. Step into something truer.
What has been the biggest challenge of running a brand like Wedlope?
The biggest challenge has been helping people understand that WEDLOPE is something entirely new. Most people hear “elopement” and think Vegas. Most people hear “life coaching” and think Zoom calls. WEDLOPE is neither of those things — it is a luxury, identity-centered experience where your coach, your poet, and your officiant are the same woman who already knows your story. Communicating that distinction in a world trained to put things in familiar boxes has required patience, persistence, and a lot of faith in the vision.
How does Wedlope impact its local community?
WEDLOPE is deeply rooted in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My book Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems is available at Bookish, a beloved local independent bookstore, and at the Fort Smith Main Library — because I believe in supporting the institutions that give independent voices a home. I am currently developing a partnership with a regional art museum to bring poetry workshops, wellness experiences, and identity-centered ceremonies into the museum’s cultural programming — bridging art, healing, and community in a way Fort Smith has never seen before. WEDLOPE is committed to showing that luxury, elegance, and intentional living belong here just as much as anywhere else.
How can women in particular benefit from what your brand has to offer?
WEDLOPE was built for two women. The one walking toward a partner who wants to arrive at her vows whole, grounded, and fully herself rather than simply beautifully dressed. And the one walking toward herself — navigating transition, reclaiming her identity, or simply ready to pour into her own life the same devotion she has always given to everyone else. Through 1:1 wellness coaching, Poetry in a Bottle workshops, our signature We Eloped group experience, and identity-centered ceremonies, every woman who encounters WEDLOPE leaves with more than a memory. She leaves with herself.
Where do you hope to see your brand in the next 3-5 years?
I see WEDLOPE becoming a recognized luxury elopement and wellness brand with a physical presence in Fort Smith — a boutique space where women can discover the book, attend workshops, and book ceremonies all in one intentional environment. I also see WEDLOPE expanding beyond Arkansas — hosting intimate elopement experiences at vineyards and in cultural spaces nationally and eventually internationally. The vision includes the Vines & Verses wine label, retreats, and a full lifestyle brand that proves literary elegance, wellness, and celebration can exist beautifully together. WEDLOPE is not just a business. It is a movement — and it is just beginning.
What advice do you have for the next generation of entrepreneurs?
Don’t wait until you feel ready. I built WEDLOPE without a high school diploma, without a traditional support system, and without anyone handing me a roadmap. I earned every credential, published every book, and built every client relationship one courageous step at a time. The world will give you every reason to believe you are not enough — not educated enough, not resourced enough, not connected enough. Ignore it. Your story is your greatest asset. Your lived experience is your most powerful credential. Start where you are. Build with what you have. And refuse to let anyone else write the ending.
What does being “Pretty and Black Owned” mean to you?
Being “Pretty and Black Owned” means refusing to restrict myself to one business path when my talents and vision are so enormous that there are many versions of me that want to walk towards bridging them all together. For me, it means proving that a Chicago native, now rooted in the heart of Fort Smith, Arkansas, can create a luxury brand built on poetry, wine, and the sacred work of helping women choose themselves. It means that elegance, depth, and brilliance are our birthright — not something we have to earn permission to embody. WEDLOPE exists because I refused to choose between being a coach, an author, an ordained celebrant, and a creative. Pretty and Black Owned means we get to be all of it. And that is the most powerful thing we can pour into the world.
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