It all started in Malibu for Sistas star KJ Smith and her fiancé, All The Queen’s Men star Skyh Black. That’s where the pair met up for their first date together — a sweet picnic — during the pandemic. It’s also where they recently posed for a gorgeous photo shoot with Stanley Babb of Stanlo Photography to celebrate their upcoming nuptials. The celebration, happening nearly two years after he asked for her hand in marriage, will also take place in Malibu. For the Miami and Tallahassee, Fla. natives, it’s a place that seems to have great meaning for their relationship.
“Standing on that ground with your partner and feeling the wind blowing and the sunset, it really turned into this spiritual thing where you felt like you could conquer the world together,” Black tells ESSENCE of the shoot’s location. “So it was so dope, the feeling of it even. I hope that transferred through the pictures.”
It certainly does. The images showcase the couple in two different looks. In one set, they’re decked out in brown outfits by Black designers Matopeda and Eaden Myles. For the second set of photos, the couple is dressed in white regal ensembles with capes from the same creatives.
“I would say it represents Skyh and I,” Smith shares. “We are not a monolith. We are so different in the way that we think, in the way that we move. And so we wanted those differences to be represented and we wanted to do it in the best way we could.”
The couple, who recently opened their own production company called Black House, talked with ESSENCE about their biggest project yet: planning their wedding. They also went in depth about their shoot, plans for their big day, and hopes for their future together.
ESSENCE: First and foremost, how did you know that you found your special person in one another?
KJ Smith: Right off the bat, it was different. The first time we had our first phone conversation, he was always talking about the future, and mind you, we met during a pandemic. And right away he wasn’t talking about all the things that were going on at that time. He was talking about the future and making plans for the future, and I’ve always been like that. I’m locked in. I love hard, and I met the person who does the same thing. I met a mirror image of myself, someone who loves with reciprocity, who loves selflessly and who plans for the future. So it was right off the bat for me. It was day one. It was the first date. This is not a drill or a game or a ploy. I was like, “Hold up. This feels different right now.” Right out of the gate it felt very different. So I knew right away.
Skyh Black: I remember it hit me after we had our first phone conversation, which was three hours long. I am not a phone guy. We spoke for three hours and KJ was nothing like I had perceived her to be. Just looking at the lead of Sistas and all that stuff, you come up with your own little micro perceptions. And it was just different. The conversation was different. Three hours for the first time ever talking. And I remember when I was getting ready for our actual first date, I mentally logged everything she had said and what her dietary restrictions were at the time. I mentally logged that. I didn’t have to write that down. I was like, “Wait a minute. I actually know this about another person. I took the time to really, really consciously and subconsciously remember it. This is different.”
ESSENCE: You have two very different looks that you wore for the shoot. I wanted to ask you, what was the inspiration for the brown ensembles? They’re very glamorous, very, very fashion forward. And then there’s the ethereal white moment happening with the capes. What was the inspiration for those two different looks?
KJ: The first is glamorous. We’re in Hollywood, it’s like lights, camera, action. In our hearts, we’re so down to earth, we’re so grounded. We’re in sweat clothes right now. We’re always in sweat clothes. But we always want to represent Black excellence with everything we do. And so the brown does represent a beautiful fashion moment for Blackness, if that makes any sense. We want to show that we can be high fashion. And then the second is to us, an ode to our roots. It’s who we could have been had things had not happened historically, the king and queen that we could have been. It’s a representation of the wholeness of our love. It is a representation for the culture.
Skyh: K and I actually are really into fashion. I’m a man and I have no problem in saying I’m inspired by clothes. I follow the fashion trends. And what we did want to do was be a little bit of both of what we are. We grew up in the South, so you have the classic cut of the brown and just a well-made tailored suit and a nice dress. We come from that. However, we definitely don’t do anything the same. We push ourselves and the white is representative, in addition to everything that K said, of “Hey, let’s be inspired by what’s going on right now in men’s fashion or women’s fashion and let’s try to spin and be innovative when it comes to marriages or what that should look like.”
ESSENCE: Were there any nerves since these were the official engagement images or were you guys just feeling over the moon the day of the shoot?
KJ: No, I wasn’t nervous at all, which is different for me. But I’m on a journey of authenticity and so on that journey, which hasn’t always been easy, it’s requiring me to just love on myself and just look in the mirror and be like, “Y’all dope.” And that’s cool. And I don’t have to hide. I don’t have to shrink. I don’t have to dim my light at all. And that’s okay. And so I wasn’t nervous at all. I was like, “Let’s do this.” You could cue Jay-Z and Beyonce. It was like, “You ready, K?” I’m like, “Let’s go get ’em!” I wasn’t nervous at all. When you’re in your purpose and when you’re living through God, I honestly feel like all things are in flow. And the way that shoot flowed was perfection, from the hair and the makeup artist, to the designers, to the tailoring, the styling, the team that put together the shoot, the videographers even. It was all in flow. We all got along. We were at the house chilling. The makeup artist is from Florida, we were talking about her family. It was all a vibe.
Skyh: Honestly, I wasn’t nervous for the first look. It was fun. It’s what K and I do. Like she said, let’s conquer the world together. The second look, I was ready before her. So honestly, I’m a kid at heart, so I felt like a superhero out there. I did see her walk down in that white where we were standing and I got so f–king emotional. I was like, “Wow, she looks incredible.” Actually, that’s when it hit me. I was like, “Wow, bro, you’re really getting married.” I’m going to be a wreck [laughs]. I’m going to tell you right now. You heard it from me. So I wasn’t nervous at all, but at that moment I did get super emotional. I was like, “Oh my God, she looks incredible.”
ESSENCE: What are your hopes for the big day? I was going to say, based on the bachelorette, bachelor joint event, a turnup is expected.
Skyh: The first part of the ceremony is very private, it’s very sentimental, and it’s the more regal part of us and where we honor our ancestors. It’s heartfelt. And then we are not even calling our wedding a reception, we’re calling it a gala. It is let’s go to Ibiza, Greece and turn up. We’re not sitting down and eating a plate of dinner. We in here living our best lives. Let’s go. It’s two totally different vibes. It’s like the bachelorette party on steroids.
KJ: We’re pretty litty. We live by “life is short” so we enjoy life. And so what we are doing is we call it the Black experience. We’re curating a Black experience for our guests. I did research as soon as he proposed to me. I was on Zoom talking to the girls like, what should I be prepared for as a bride? And that’s why I’m advocating to do the same for other brides, because when I went online, it was other beautiful Black brides who were helping me out so I want to do the same. A lot of the brides would say, “I didn’t remember my day at all. I didn’t enjoy myself at all. I was so stressed out. I was all these things.” And I vowed to not allow any of those things to affect me. I waited for this. In my thirties, I waited for this moment, so I am not going to miss a second. So we wanted to curate an experience not only for our guests, but something that we also can enjoy and something that we can have fun with.
And y’all know, I share it already with the world how I like to have fun. So it’s about to be turnt. I also had an idea to give away my previous dress because I was blessed enough to find a designer who wanted to work with me. It is another amazing Black designer. So I had bought a dress a long time ago, and so this designer was like, “I want to work with you KJ, and I want to do your dress.” And so I have this beautiful, amazing gown. And with Skyh’s encouragement, he was like, “You don’t have to have it all together. Just tell the people that you want to give away your dress.”
And so I put it online that I am giving away my dress and my hairstylist said, “Okay, I’m going to give away a unit.” The Black designer who’s doing the robes, W Legacy, is going to give away a bridal robe. Sierra Bridal who does bridal hair jewelry is going to give hair jewelry. A photographer reached out to me and said, “Hey, I want to give a bride a photo shoot.” So now it’s become this big thing. And so I’m so excited about helping a bride in need. We’ve already read so many amazing bridal stories.
ESSENCE: What are you looking forward to most about stepping into this next chapter of your lives together?
Skyh: The things that K and I have been able to accomplish personally, financially, career wise and spiritually together, for me, it’s knowing that this is locked in, ain’t no switching up ever. And now I feel like I can take on the world even more. I’m a very ambitious guy, but now I got her next to me, and we love the hell out of each other. There’s no limits. I feel like limitlessness is on the other side of marriage.
KJ: The biblical thing, “where two are gathered…,” we live by that. So we like to stay on the same page and on the same wave because I really believe in energy and God energy and being untethered. So I’m really looking forward to us growing that bond, growing our spirituality together, growing our relationship with God together. Because for us, what we’ve learned is once you have the mental and the spiritual locked in, all the physical things, that all comes and it also goes. And none of that matters because you’re so tapped into what you got going on. And we met during the pandemic when it was very chaotic, when it was glum. It was a hard time. And we’re currently getting married during a strike, which is also a very hard time and we’re both artists. But what we practice is keeping our mental bar none because that’s the part that matters. Like I said, things come and go. People come and go, all that comes and goes. But Skyh and I, we’re tapped in and locked in.
Check out images of the couple from their stunning shoot, along with a brief recap of their relationship thus far.
The two would first lock eyes while working on Tyler Perry’s hit Sistas, which Smith is a lead actress on. Black had a recurring role on the show for two seasons.
“I always say that I learned how to be a leading man by watching her on and off set and how she just communicated with people. I was like, oh, this girl’s pretty dope,” he told us in 2021.
Soon after he closed out his time on Sistas, the two found a way to keep in touch, and a connection was formed.
“Once I got All The Queen’s Men she actually shot me a DM and said, ‘Hey, I didn’t get a chance to get your number, but I just wanted to tell you, congratulations. If you need any advice, if you need anything like that, don’t hesitate to reach out.’ I was like, cool. At that time she was on Family Business and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and I congratulated her on Family Business. We actually just called each other. I was like, “Yeah, I’ll take you up on that.” So I called her and we had a three-hour conversation,” Black told ESSENCE. “We had this beautiful three-hour conversation just about life, about navigating the industry. We’re both from Florida, so we had that in common. It was like, okay, cool. Then the next day we actually talked again about something and it went to a two-hour conversation. I’ll be honest, I just said, “Yo, can I take you out Saturday?” She was like, “Sure.”
The date was an unforgettable one. “We were really limited during the [early] pandemic, so I thought we were just going to grab some coffee and go sit in a park,” Smith told us in 2022. “This man showed up with a big picnic basket and cooler full of all the things that I talked about that I like on the phone.”
Before they could go public, they wanted to talk to Tyler Perry first. As Smith previously shared with us, before they were comfortable being out and in love, her publicist would ask fans who posted pictures of them together to remove those photos. “We hadn’t even told Tyler yet,” she said at the time. The two didn’t play about the “no fraternization policy” in place, so they went to Perry to make sure he was fine with them being an item post Black’s work on Sistas concluding. He gave them his blessing.
The two let the world know they were a real-life item in September, sharing photos of them holding hands together in Miami as their fans went wild.
Black got down on one knee in front of their family members in Florida on Christmas day to propose to Smith. “This is definitely the best Christmas I’ve ever had,” she wrote at the time on Instagram. “I get to share my life with my soul mate.”
The couple told us at the NAACP Image Awards that they were going to postpone their date too see Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour. Smith is a loyal Beyhive member and Black danced with the star for years.
“We do have a date. We had to move our date because my beautiful wife to be, she got tickets to Bey’s concert,” he said. “We called our wedding planner and she was like ‘You’ve got to move that date!’”
The two turned up the heat big time at the joint celebration they had to mark their upcoming nuptials. The night included a sexy dance from Black, who put what he’s learned as a trained dancer and on All The Queen’s Men, to use on the bride-to-be.
Later that same month, the couple attended the BET Awards and shared the importance of communication in their relationship.
“We believe in having fun and allowing each other to be who they are and communicating with each other, and stuff that traditionalists don’t really vibe with. We are artists as well, so there’s that whole component and we love what we do. So it’s like, ‘Baby go do you.’ We learn from each other and we communicate,” Smith said.
“We’re big on communication, and we’re big on expressing feelings,” Black added. “Especially, in men, we think vulnerability is a weakness when vulnerability is a superpower.”
The two flew down to NOLA where they hung out with fans, enjoyed the shows and took pictures with other stars. They wore complementary ensembles and of course, made time for some sweet PDA.
The couple are set to tie the knot in Malibu and can’t wait! We also can’t wait to see how their big day comes together, including all of the dancing and fun that is sure to take place with their loved ones and Hollywood friends. Here’s to the couple finding their happily ever after in one another.
Vendors
Photographer: @stanlophotography
MUA: @mua_ttt_tia
Hairstylist: @dommiecole
Videographer: @unleashedvizuals
Dresses: @matopeda.atelier
Custom suits: @eadenmyles