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!
Crystal and Kendrick met at church, and this past spring became a blended family when they married on May 1, 2016. They're both full of personality, and I love the way they lovingly teased each other during the shoot. We had their shoot in the Arts District in Downtown Dallas, just walking around the area.
Read MoreWhen I got engaged I expected to learn a lot of things, but learning to say no wasn’t one of them. But now I have a lot of people and businesses offering to do things for me. And I have a lot of people telling Fiancé and I what our wedding should and should not be like and how things are done and why we shouldn’t do them differently.
Read MoreOverall, my experience as a wedding planner, a feminist, a millennial, and a newlywed gave me the insight I needed to create my own career and fulfill a need in the bridal market. I trusted my instinct, I embraced my mom’s wisdom and knew she was the person I wanted to stand by my side, and we never let anyone tell us our ideas weren’t good enough.
Read MoreIvan got in touch with me a week before his trip to Chicago, with his girlfriend, Fara. They had a fun agenda planned for their weekend getaway, and the Midwest welcomed them with some amaaaazing weather AND a memorable, busy/buzzing city...celebrating the Cubs' achievement of making it to the World Series! Though, I'm sure that will be the last thing they remember about their time in Chicago, ha!
Read MoreIn celebration of this great moment, and to help you craft a ceremony that embodies your own highest aspirations, here are nine new game-changing vows for modern couples.
Read MoreGiven that our wedding was inherently not traditional in the bride and groom department, we wanted to think outside the box in general and incorporate aspects that really represented each of us, our ancestors, and values. Carri has Jewish heritage on one side of her family, and so we chose to incorporate the breaking the glass tradition at the end of our ceremony. Roz’s family is African American, so we also incorporated the jumping the broom tradition. We wanted to acknowledge our family who had passed and couldn’t be there, as well as those throughout history who fought to make interracial and gay marriage possible.
Read MoreWe have loved working with Lauren Scott of Tickled Photo Booth ever since she attended our very first {un}convention back in 2014. Tickled is a DC-based photo booth company that offers a variety of photo booth experiences for weddings, private events, and conferences. All of the photos from her still photo booth are professional quality and will give you so many memories to share from your event.
Read MoreIt's that time of year when people are more likely to make the decision to get engaged and start planning their wedding. Engagement gifts are becoming more and more common as a way to celebrate a couple's decision to dedicate themselves to each other, but the last thing anyone needs is an engagement gift that tries to assert outside opinions into their relationship and engagement. Throughout the month of December we will be sharing engagement gifts that will help couples celebrate, but will leave all that patriarchal traditional bullshit behind. First off, the idea engagement gifts that our woo-woo loving Creative Director, Jen, would pick out for herself if she could do it all again.
Read MoreWendi and Crystal both had a strong connection with God early on in their lives. Slowly, they began to suspect that their attractions were different. They met in college living in the same hall through roommates and slowly over a year and a half, fell in love. They knew this was not the sort of love taught to them in Sunday School and worried what their families and church would think. In their words, "...we also knew what we had together was incredibly raw and gentle and bursting with color and life, and that truly made us want to strive to be better people for each other and the world around us." So through the fires of inner conflict, they forged their own beautiful diamond of a relationship together, a fusion of love and a new kind of faith, one that is radiant and open and accepting, shining through them and filling them with joy.
Read MoreCarly Romeo, co-founder of Catalyst Wed Co. recently planned Feminist Photo Vaycay, which is a blend of relaxation and creative exploration. Over the course of three days, fifteen photographers descended on the desert (well, a house in Palm Springs) and talked shop, took photos of each other, and had access to four professionally-styled shoots with themes that spanned the genres of boudoir, editorial, weddings, and couples' portraiture. But more than giving photographers a chance to shoot genres that they don't usually work within, the shoots were intentionally diverse -- featuring multicultural models and same-sex couples — and representative of the diversity of clients they all seek to serve. The results were spectacular: they pushed themselves creatively, they shot in pools and on top of mountains, and they practiced and shared technical skills. Oh, and the photos turned out awesome.
Read MoreWhat a pair! Manny and Neiba met one night at an ugly sweater party. His first impression was not the greatest, but Neiba gave him the benefit of the doubt and eventually the two began dating. Shortly after, Manny deployed to Afghanistan, and it was during their time spent apart that their relationship blossomed. He told me, “It was hard to think about life without her.” Soon after returning from deployment Manny decided to propose. He wanted to ask her to marry him in front of the one who brought them together, so after a Wednesday night service at River of Life Church, Manny got down on one knee and proposed. Neiba was completely surprised, and with tears running down her face she said "DUH!"
Read MoreFor starters, aren't these two the cutest? We started at a hole-in-the-wall pub called The Anchor and ended up in the heart of Wichita, Kansas. From the moment I met these two, I felt like I was hanging out with a couple of old friends. It was a nice summer Saturday filled with laughter (and lots of it) and love. We incorporated the little aspects of their relationship like imported beer, handwritten notes, and unique architecture. I would celebrate Jess and Jessica's love for each other every day of the week if I could. The passion and love they have for each other shows in every image that I took. I am overjoyed that I get to openly share their story and their soulful love for each other.
Read MoreWe are a queer couple with a transgender husband, who met five years ago through mutual friends at a dance night at a local bar. We lived in the same small town for over a decade, knowing some of the same people, and we managed to miss each other for all those years. When marriage equality passed, we discussed getting married, and it was an easy yes! Our wedding was one year later on the weekend of the anniversary of marriage becoming federally legal. Because both of us never thought we were ever going to get married we never thought about what we would want for a wedding.
Read MorePhotographer Sarah Rittenour explains the inspiration for this shoot: "The theme of this trash the dress shoot was about defying the pressures to get married young and beat the 'biological clock.' The model, Echo, is a young Chinese woman who experiences these pressures daily. I really liked playing with the idea of a young bride abandoning a wedding that didn't fit her and experiencing the freedom of finding herself while exploring the world. I believe the idea that marriage should happen for deeply personal reasons rather than societal pressures."
Read MoreKaylen and I actually met through Tinder. I was living in College Station, and she was stationed at Fort Hood. We talked for a few months, every day all day, before Kaylen drove two hours to come meet me back in the summer of 2014. We hit it off right away. She was different from anyone I had ever met and I was surely different for her. Kaylen was so unique, and I had never met anyone who was so grounded yet so beautiful inside and out. She was serious most of the time, and most of my friends didn't understand what I saw in her, but they didn't see what I saw under that tough skin. Now, all of our friends say they don't know a more perfect and lovable couple.
Read MoreSpring and Jayni have been together six years and just recently got engaged. They met in Silverlake, so the nearby Echo Park Lake seemed like the perfect fit for their photo shoot. Spring proposed to Jayni by orchestrating a choreographed "dance" to try together, starting with them facing opposite directions and when Jayni turned around, Spring was down on one knee. We met for their shoot in Echo Park the day before the Spring Equinox, so the days were getting longer and the sun didn't set 'til 7pm. Spring is a musician, but rather than bring along her guitar, she opted for an adorable (and more portable) red ukulele for a serenade in the park.
Read MoreCarly Romeo, co-founder of Catalyst Wed Co. recently planned Feminist Photo Vaycay, which is a blend of relaxation and creative exploration. Over the course of three days, fifteen photographers descended on the desert (well, a house in Palm Springs) and talked shop, took photos of each other, and had access to four professionally-styled shoots with themes that spanned the genres of boudoir, editorial, weddings, and couples' portraiture. But more than giving photographers a chance to shoot genres that they don't usually work within, the shoots were intentionally diverse – featuring multicultural models and same-sex couples – and representative of the diversity of clients they all seek to serve. The results were spectacular: they pushed themselves creatively, they shot in pools and on top of mountains, and they practiced and shared technical skills. Oh, and the photos turned out awesome.
Read MoreThe mainstream wedding industry and media are fixated on a very particular fairy tale: one bride and one groom live happily-ever-after, the end. But my fiancé, Casey, and I believe that our story is just as beautiful without a Prince Charming, maybe even more so because of the obstacles we’ve had on our way to the aisle. From bigoted bakers to monogramming mishaps, ours is a modern-day story of love conquering all.
Read MoreLeonor and Katryna have a soft, quiet, comfortable but strong love. I could see it in the way that Leonor's eyes sparkled when she looked at Katryna when she was getting animated over talking about some adventure, or the way Katryna's hand held onto Leo's. They cheer each other on through challenges and hardships -- through graduate school life and military life and everything else. Katryna, a pilot instructor, volunteers to fly dogs from overcrowded shelters across the country with Leonor happily keeping the dogs comfortable in-flight. They have five dogs between the two of them and are more adventurous than even these elopement photos would suggest. Katryna is the live-life-to-the-fullest, no-holds-barred type of soul, with Leonor, her strong champion and companion, quietly but equally as passionate for life.
Read MoreJeremy and Sean’s friendship began in college. Actually, Sean took Jeremy to his audition room when he auditioned to get into The University of the Arts. They became friends during Jeremy’s freshman year, and their relationship began the next year. They fell in love with each other and became an inseparable pair. Jeremy brought Sean home to his family not too far away from school and Sean brought Jeremy home to Georgia. On the day they moved into their first apartment together, Sean popped the question surrounded by candles, rose petals, flowers, and with a ring in his hand. A few months later, Jeremy popped the question and gave Sean his ring. Since then, they have been very much enjoying their engagement and loving planning their wedding. The big day is this October and they could not be more excited. They fall more in love with each other every day and are lucky to call each other their best friends.
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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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