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Makenzee Meaux is the poster-perfect image of a pretty young woman with flowing long locks.
Earlier this month, Meaux and her husband-to-be, Bryan Ballard, booked a photoshoot to celebrate their recent engagement.
The beautiful pictures they posted on the internet look just as one would expect: a good-looking young couple hugging and kissing in the forest, but with a slight twist. Halfway through the photoshoot, the young bride-to-be surprisingly takes off what is revealed to have been a wig and reveals her natural beauty – bald head and all.
Like 6.8 million other people in the United States, Meaux has alopecia, an auto-immune condition that causes partial or complete hairloss. She spent the better part of her life hiding her condition by wearing wigs but now decided to take this bold step to inspire millions of others to embrace their natural beauty - hair or no hair.
Meaux wasn't always this confident. After she was diagnosed with alopecia at age eight, she experienced years of bullying and says she gave up all hope of ever feeling beautiful again. Even after meeting her future husband, it took her over two months to tell him of her situation.
And Ballard did what anyone should do - he accepted the woman he loves for who she is and over the years helped her to also accept herself and see herself as beautiful for the first time in a long time.
“He has helped me be brave and realize that hair is not what makes you beautiful and is not what makes people love you, it is truly all about what’s on the inside,” writes Meaux.
“He has shown me that the people who love you do not care whether or not you have hair and the ones who do are not worth your time or your love. So this is me, the true me.”
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