Real Weddings, Advice, & Inspiration

Catalyst Wedding Company highlights weddings by and for game-changers. We seek to amplify and empower voices and viewpoints that are usually missing from the Wedding Industrial Complex. We're a community of badass wedding professionals who love all things funky, fresh, diverse, unique, and personality-driven; we convene twice yearly for (un)convention, a collaborative workshop, styled shoot, and dinner party. We're also the publishers of Catalyst Wedding Mag, a resource for couples looking for inspiration and affirmation that doing things differently in wedding-world is not only ok, it's wonderful!

Mydanh Nguyen Tran and Alec Baker met only a year and a half ago, and it was love at first sight. They were both newly divorced with kids in tow and decided to do a very low-key two day event at Alec's farmhouse in Upperco, Maryland, this past June with only close family members invited to the actual ceremony and close friends and other family for the reception the following day. Mydanh's daughter, Laya, and Alec's daughter, Justine, were the flower girls, while Mydanh's son, Liam, walked her down the aisle. The kids stole the show to say the least.

Photos by Kara Wright Photography

backyard wedding by Kara Wright and Taylor and Hov Events

Vendors

Taylor and Hov Events | Planning and Design

Oak and Amble | Florals

Something Vintage Rentals | Rentals

KARA WRIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

I am A DMV ( D.C., Maryland, and Virginia)-based photographer who specializes in weddings, music, and other special events, as well as boudoir and portraiture photography. I decided one day in early 2014 to quit my corporate job by that summer and let photography consume my day-to-day, and I did. I pride my work on the "less is more" with editing and try to spend as little time as possible and concentrate on the great shots, not the over-edited unrealistic expectations that we see so much today.