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!
This may come as a shocker, but you don’t need tattoos, pink hair, or even a major attitude in order to be a rebellious bride. Of course, all of the above helps. A world with more pink coiffures would be lovely, wouldn’t it?
Read MoreI had a bit of a revelation the other day. A hosting revelation. An event epiphany, so to speak. I’ve been fairly vocal on my blog about trying to ease the pressure to be crafty, keeping things simple when it comes to party and wedding decor and DIY projects, and even shared my own personal holiday and party decor to show that it can be easy and uncomplicated. However, I wasn’t sure where this desire to calm people the eff down about decor came from. Why was I so anti-decor and making tables and centerpieces and events look nice? I realized the other day that it’s about the motivation. It’s about staying true to WHY you want your table to look beautiful.
Read MoreAs a wedding planner, I (Sarah) get asked a lot of etiquette questions, but my mantra is — whatever makes you happy and reflects who you are. As a couple, Nicole and I have applied this to our own wedding planning. We've decided on a destination wedding in Italy (and honestly don't care that we can't legally marry there because our best friend is officiating and the good ole USA has granted us that right) because we like to eat and Nicole says the best meal of her life was in Positano. While I don't mind bigger weddings, for my own, I want to have time to hold each guests hand, look them in the eye and thank them for being a part of our lives. 40 guests makes this totally doable. We focus on our relationship and the love that surrounds us — that's what the heart of a wedding is about!
Read MoreIn my 20s, I found myself buying wedding gifts on registries for friends who were getting married. Those experiences were so impersonal and transactional I started to wonder if I could build something better. Before Thankful, I was a copywriter at design agencies working on big corporate websites and also small, fun brands with lots of personality. So I started with the tone I wanted the site to have. Since gift giving is so emotional, I knew the brand would be more about the relationships between people, and less about "stuff." That's what set us apart from the way retailers were doing registries.
Read MoreWhile in San Francisco for {un}convention last month, carly+jen, as well as our friends Marita and Brandon from Slingin' Pretty, visited the home studio of Danielle Wen of Lace & Liberty.
Read MoreAya & Britta both hail from the Pacific Northwest, so even though they now live in Los Angeles it made the most sense to get married here in Seattle. I find their love story to be all sorts of adorable… they were college roommates, and they loved living together, but it wasn’t until the very last few weeks of their first year living together that they realized they were honest-to-goodness in love with each other. They are such a fun couple (and it’s no surprise to me that they fell in love after living together for a year!), and their wedding was seriously fun!
Read More2014 was the year I married Allen, my favorite person in the world. In front of family and friends, I promised to love him with reckless abandon. I pledged to live the most soul affirming life with him. Quoting the effervescent RuPaul’s sacred words—“if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else,”—I vowed that we always love ourselves enough to be great people as individuals who have the capacity for mercy, grace, and dignity; and through that self-love (not to be confused with selfish love), may we always show merciful, graceful, and dignified love to each other. With an open heart and an affection for the fictional Parks and Recreation couple Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt, we repeated: “I love you and I like you.”
Read MoreMy mission as a wedding photographer is to capture and share authentic wedding day stories. Whether my couples are eloping at San Francisco City Hall or getting married on a rainy day in the middle of an Oregon forest, my job is to be there to photograph all the candid moments in between beyond the epic posed portraits. I want my wedding photos to feel true to my couples and the reality of their wedding day. I’m drawn to catching the tender glances my couples share throughout the day, the times when nervous anticipation gives way to liberating laughter, and the elation in their eyes when when it hits them that, "Yes! We’re getting married today!"
Read MoreIn my time with these two, it was immediately clear they were operating so outside of the expectations of the wedding world. A lot of life still has to happen before they begin to plan the wedding (medical school, jobs, etc.), and during this shoot they were solely focused on enjoying the time they had together rather than stress about a self-imposed wedding deadline. They had a ton of fun showing me up and down the trails, and it was like hanging out with old friends while taking some photos.
Read MoreChristie Hardwick, the author of The Progressive Wedding Book, has been a wonderful supporter of Catalyst, and we are stoked to share an excerpt of her book, aimed at addressing the needs, concerns, and dreams of the LGBT community in the wake of the federal legalization of same sex marriage.
Read MoreKurt and I have known each other since we were seven years old as elementary school acquaintances. After reconnecting later in life while we both had significant others, we soon ended those relationships and began dating each other. Kurt eventually proposed on the playground of the elementary school we both went to. Pretty adorable.
Read MoreSome crazy, unhinged gentleman has asked for your hand in marriage. Your mother is beside herself with shock, and your father can't stop congratulating you. The guy you dated for two months in college is shaking his head in disbelief. Your best frenemy is crying tears she promises come from a happy place. This is not a time for grapes and fatfree yogurt. It is a time for whipping up an alcoholic milkshake, raising your glass to the sky, and enjoying wild sex with a man who worships your body as it is.
Read MoreMy husband and I spent half of the last year apart. We were not forced into a distance relationship by factors outside of our control, but rather, like many Millennials with our privileged upbringings, lifestyle options seemed endless despite limited career realities, and our jobs and interests led us in different directions. Adam’s employer decided to transfer him from Washington, D.C. to Houston, Texas right before Volume One of Catalyst Wedding Magazine went to print and just as I began to feel rooted in a community of District creatives. We had been married a little over a year when I tentatively told him that in my heart of hearts, I was not ready to leave and proposed that he move to Texas alone. Always my biggest believer, he barely winced and got to helping me find a room to rent on Craigslist. Ever the realist, the day he left for Texas he gave a little spiel about what administrative things I should take care of if he were to die before we were reunited, and I verbally willed him eleven boxes of wedding magazines through teary eyes.
Read MoreIn thinking about what we wanted out of our wedding (and over-thinking it for weeks on end) we agreed there were three things we simply couldn’t live without in this celebration: great food, a killer location, and stunning photographs. What we got out of our wedding was so much more than these three things. In thinking about what was important to us, we were able to drop what wasn’t and created a celebration that showed the 70 family and close friends in attendance exactly who we are as a couple, and how much our hearts burst with love for one another. The very friend who facilitated our meeting at a bar officiated our wedding, and told the story of our love. She incorporated tidbits that she had secretly solicited from each of us, and it was incredibly powerful to hear the things that we’d written about each other for the first time along with our friends and family. Amanda’s dad passed away about two years ago, and she was scared that it would feel like there was a hole where something huge was missing during the celebrations. Instead, the love and joy that radiated from every single person who was there filled our hearts even more. Throughout our planning, we tried to balance all of the things we wanted this wedding to be without losing each other in the process. In the end, the result was so beautifully us.
Read MoreThe original idea behind team Jax Kicks Ass' shoot was a Peter Pan theme: a combination of whimsy, magical and urban. After a couple of last minute set backs and the unpredictable rainy weather on the shoot day, the team was forced to revamp and improvise with the tools each vendor was left with at their disposal. Fortunately, the clouds seemed to lend themselves to the candlelit, romantic warmth created inside this urban warehouse, which wound up creating the magical vibe the team intended for in the first place.
Read MoreOur aim was to create a styled shoot that focused more on emotion and the narrative experience of planning a marriage than simply the glitz and staged still life that is the norm for styled shoots. We partnered with a real life couple to tell the story of what happens when a couple becomes engaged, endures the stress of early planning, and then decides to be true to themselves and elope. We wanted to create inspirational images unlike those we'd seen before, such as a woman proposing to her male partner, and the honesty of the "fuck it, let's elope" scene. In sum, we hope that our imagery pleases in not only an aesthetic way that shows off awesome details such as the Ash & Light sequined dress, but that it also hits an emotional chord and rings true about the underlying experience and significance of the wedding planning process.
Read MoreWhile Gary and Michael felt that their wedding overall was fairly traditional, there were certainly elements that made it un-traditional. Their wedding ceremony was based off of Aristophanes's Speech in Plato's Symposium and lyrics from the song "Origin of Love" from the musical, Hedwig & the Angry Inch. In Plato's Symposium, men attending the symposium were asked to deliver a speech in examination and praise of "Love". Aristophanes's speech sets up the original myth of love and the feeling of "wholeness" when you find your love partner.
Read MoreOur story follows a RVA couple that have been together for several years, have a great house, have a sweet pup and have finally decided to get married. She bought a wedding dress, they started the planning, picked out stationary and did all the things that a normal engaged couple would do. Until one Sunday morning they woke up and thought, “Fuck it. Let’s just go and get married.” They ate breakfast, got dressed, took their dog on a walk, got married and went back home to eat cake and Netflix & chill. Maybe not the most glamorous of wedding days with dreamy sunsets and gold rimmed place settings but the two most important parties showed up for one another and isn’t that all we really hope for on a wedding day.
Read MoreAs a wedding calligrapher, I think a lot about names. As a feminist, I also think a lot about names and the meaning that they convey. Particularly, I find the "traditional" way of addressing envelopes a bit, shall we say, dated. I've been gratified that many of my clients feel the same way and have instead been moving toward a new, 21st-century model of addressing wedding guests.
Read MoreMy experience with OOTB actually turned into a personal affirmation of what moves me to make photographs of couples. Real love. It's so simple sometimes that I do occasionally question myself! But seriously — two people in love are an overlooked marvel. There is so much pressure in this industry to present weddings as this elaborate tableau vivant — immaculate people having immaculate parties. Gorgeous? Yes. My cup of tea? Nope. Give me flower confetti and a side ache from laughing too hard any day.
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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!
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