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!
Here at Catalyst, we have been working hard to find new paths forward, but after six years of working to bring more diverse voices and love stories to the wedding industry, we have made the difficult decision to stop publication at the end of 2020.
Read MoreWe’ve decided it would be more intimate and self-respecting to have an elopement as soon as we’re able, and a honeymoon when we can afford it. This style of wedding wasn’t my top choice but it seems like that’s because of what the wedding industry tells us is appropriate.
Read MoreNo lace. No beading. No cleavage-showing. And no white. Those were my only preferences when it came to wedding gowns. Just as I was thinking I should downplay the whole pageantry and wear something all-black, Karol asked me something. “Have you considered a qipao?”
Read MoreWhat are all the unacknowledged ways that a bride labors over her own wedding? A big part of it is emotional labor. More often than not, the bride is the wedding’s emotional referee. She fields dozens of requests, needs, and opinions (so many opinions!) from family, friends, and other guests. The stakes are high, too. If she messes up and shows any sign of frustration or anxiety or stress, there’s a nasty word to put her back in her place (it rhymes with “Godzilla”).
Read MorePeople love this stuff! And there is no shortage of vendors and ways that you can incorporate cannabis into your wedding. That said, being at an event about enjoying cannabis filled with mainly white faces in stark juxtaposition to the black and brown ones filling prisons for doing the same thing left me feeling a way.
Read MoreLast week, the self-delusion fell squarely on the shoulders of a Denver-based videography company, Media Mansion. This coupled with the United Methodist Church’s recent vote for restrictions against queer clergy (many whom have sustained my last remaining ounce of faith in Christianity) and queer couples to marry in their churches has many of us worn out, scared, and feeling helpless.
Read MoreWhat a horrible situation this puts engaged couples in, especially women. What should be a joyous occasion becomes so much work that you can't even enjoy it. It becomes yet another thing you have to do.
Read MoreBy making what felt like my first adult decision, I had hopped on an escalator and couldn’t get off. We grew to love each other, and I wasn’t miserable. Yet I increasingly wondered, is this it?
Read MoreYearning for a successful wedding or to at least not get kicked out of more than one wedding party, I started studying how to be a bride and the history of Western wedding traditions. That’s when I uncovered how wedding traditions were originally designed to pressure women into becoming mothers, to erase their individuality for the sake of family, to give men power over them, and to discriminate against anyone who wasn’t a white, cis heterosexual.
Read MoreThe wedding industry didn’t grow to be worth $54 billion because Americans just love marriage so much. No way — marriage is cheap! We’re talking marriage license fees and gas money; you can get married for less than $100. The wedding industry grew to be so enormous because it is built on one big lie: a wedding is the best day of a woman’s life. Maybe it’s not a lie as much as it is a fantasy that we are socialized to embrace from day one. They slap that pink cap on your head, and next thing you know you’re living a Disney-themed childhood in which your career goals amount to being a glitter princess and a mommy to a brood of doll babies. But who will pay for your pink ball gowns and tea parties for your woodland friends? Oh, you know who: Prince Charming.
Read MoreA few months before the wedding, I started receiving texts and emails from members of the wedding party, asking what I wanted to do for a bachelorette weekend. Since I had been using Pinterest to find wedding inspiration, I started searching there for ideas.
After an initial search of "bachelorette party ideas," I quickly realized that Pinterest—or any other mainstream source—would not be the place for me to plan the feminist weekend with friends I had been dreaming about.
Read MoreWhen I enter church, I don’t get to take off my womanness or my blackness or my queerness and just enter as Christian. I enter as all of me, which includes the parts of my identity that our society privileges and the parts of my identity that our society oppresses. Shout out to Mother Lorde who preached to us all that, There is no thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.
Read MoreI am typing this while our little dude naps in my arms. I know, I know, there are probably a dozen reasons why that will cause detrimental habits with his sleeping or may cause him not to go to college. But, for now, I am not worried about that. I just picked him up from daycare, and those cheeks burrowed on my chest are exactly what the end of the day calls for. One thing I have learned in eight months as a new parent is that there is an abundance of information, personal opinions, and stories about how things used to be in terms of raising a child that inundate us (and feed our anxiety) every day. However, with the abundance of information available about parenthood, there is a major gap in information and resources available for same-sex parents. I have thought about writing up a bit about our experience and chickened out a few times, but I struggled a lot with becoming a mom (by way of my wife), and I am hoping to give voice to the growing complexity and great diversity in what constitutes a family.
Read MoreAs I was driving home, my head swirled with thoughts of "the Truth" and how "Christians" can sometimes be the least likely to draw people to Christ. I began to ponder why is it that the African American community (most of it) has not embraced and affirmed LGBTQ individuals? Truth be told, there are those family members that we always knew preferred the same sex, but it was never discussed. Not only was it not discussed, they just never seemed to bring anyone to the family dinners or get-togethers.
Read MoreI often felt like I wasn’t fighting hard enough. I wasn’t doing enough to combat the trauma and distress of racism and institutionalized hate. I felt like I was hiding. But then I sat down and looked at the work that I do. It’s beyond the details. The core of the work is facilitating joy. As I heard David Tutera describe it, the burden of wedding professionals is to create a “bubble” moment that envelopes everyone and allows them to escape.
Read MoreI was so desperate to believe I had found this person that I began to excuse the red flags erecting themselves faster than I could ever imagine. His disdain for my parents (and my parents’ disdain for him) was simply birthed from situational misunderstandings. His lack of motivation in education and work was an intentional (and brilliant) slap in the face of “the man.” His unwanted advances and coercing were a testimony of his attraction and devotion to me. Everything that soured my gut was immediately soothed the moment he kissed my forehead or proclaimed his endless love for my being. And I bought it.
Read MoreNext summer, I will marry a man who has never lived in the same state as me. My fiancé, Greg, and I met on Tinder two years ago, and since then, we’ve taken turns to visit each other every weekend at my home in Natick, Massachusetts, and his in Manchester, Connecticut.
Even getting married won’t guarantee that we can live together, as school and work tie us to our respective states for the foreseeable future. While there are times when this arrangement is difficult (mostly when I’m sitting on the Mass Pike in traffic), it has strengthened our relationship by making us truly appreciate our time together. Besides, you don’t pass up the love of your life because he’s geographically undesirable.
Read MoreDiversity and representation are important, but before you send out that model call, stop and ask yourself these questions.
1. Why is diversity important to black women?
2. What do I do regularly to help fight against the white supremacist world we live in?
3. What will this black woman gain from doing my photo shoot?
Read MoreWhy does a wedding planner want to talk about politics and identity? As a Texas-based business owner, you can imagine how often I get asked that question. But the answer is always the same: because politics and identity affect everything I do: my choice of hairstyle, who I work with, the very fact that I’m a black-owned business that loves working with same-sex couples in a state that makes its position on that very well-known. I could go on. But ultimately, do you know why? Because people are politics.
Read MoreFiction is about truth, in a deeper sense. And in the political times we’ve brought ourselves into, in this age of Trump and fake news and alternative facts, we are in dire need of the truth. Now, it could be said that “alternative facts” and fiction are technically synonymous — both are factually inaccurate or completely invented versions of events. But the important distinction is in the intention. The intention of spreading alternative facts is to obscure the truth. The intention of writing fiction is to reveal it. Fiction is about radical honesty.
Read MoreCatalyst Wedding Co. may receive compensation or products from these companies. This helps support our site.
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!
For DMCA takedown notices or other concerns related to possible infringing content, please email jen@catalystwedco.com.
Catalyst Wedding Co. is made possible by the support of our vendors and partners, as well as through the revenue generated through a number of affiliate programs. This means we include monetized links across our site and we may earn a commission if you purchase a product via these links. We will do our best to indicate these links when possible, and will only promote products we believe in.
Copyright ©2020 Catalyst Wedding Co.
