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!
Have you ever Googled “beautiful weddings"? You know what comes up? Pages and pages of white couples and maybe an Asian couple for good measure. But there is very little that speaks to a black bride and groom. When I see this, I am saddened. I think of when I was a young girl and did not see much that represented or looked like me. Black men and women get married, too!
Read MoreThroughout our relationship we have had to deal with long distance and being far apart for months at a time. After we lived in Shanghai, I moved to Amsterdam, and Remy moved to New York City for university. It is not easy doing long distance but we have managed to make it work over time. We've been together now for six years, and I think what makes our relationship so special is that we've become accustomed to traveling to see each other and love traveling together to new places.
Read MoreWe first met in our high school algebra II class my junior year and his senior year. He started to sit by me everyday. Then one thing led to another, and our small talk over homework turned into flirting. He would randomly ask, “Why are you blushing?” in order to make me blush. I refused to let him win and make me blush. But no matter what I did, without knowing, my cheeks would automatically get a little rosy each time he asked me. For my birthday that year he showed up to class with a present for me. Of course he had to ask me, “Why are you blushing?” in order to embarrass me a little. I never imagined he thought of me as anything more than a friend until that day.
Read More26 years. That is how long Diana and Sue have been together. I was five years old when they got together. It’s a lifetime when you think about it! And I could feel that lifetime as I walked into their home in Knoxville on their snowy wedding day. Their home was filled with trinkets from a life well lived: hundreds of cookbooks lined the shelves in the kitchen, Christmas cards from the recent holiday hung on the rafters, and photos of children and grandchildren lined the hallways.
Read MorePlay. The idea of play is a form of connection, to each other and to their surroundings. We kept saying that in their world it would rain confetti. The wedding bouquet was edible. Hot pink and bold shapes. Swings, bubbles, ribbons, a hot pink bamboo altar, laughs, confetti frozen into ice, play. Anywhere you go in the world the happiest people you see are often the ones that know how to play, whatever that looks like to each person. It was fun. It was also fun to gather a group of dynamic, female, artists in the area to create together for the first time.
Read MoreIn PART I of this two part episode Jasmine is joined by Gabby LaBarbara, an editorial assistant at Junebug Weddings. Together they expose the complex emotional landscape of planning a wedding as Gabby recounts her experience canceling her "first" wedding, processing her emotions, and starting all over with a smaller wedding that represents the unique love she shares with her fiancé Patrick.
Read MoreAnd then they got married. I will never forget Anya standing on the beach with her Dad, while Arlo was so overcome with emotion that he stood there and spoke loudly and with so much conviction, telling Anya how much he loved her. He was proclaiming his love for her through tears, to her and to their families and to the sea that surrounded them...and this was before the wedding had even begun, so you can only imagine how emotional the actual ceremony was.
Read MoreI've never believed in love in first sight until I saw her. You know that butterfly-in-your-stomach, hair-standing-on-the-back-of-your-neck feel? We met in high school while she played basketball, and I was a cheerleader. I couldn't keep my eyes off her during basketball games. It went on for years, and I just couldn't find the words to tell her how I felt until years later. I woke up one day and said I'm going to finally let her know how I feel.
Read MoreBorn in Oregon and raised in the Northwest and in the Midwest, I never saw much diversity. As a result, I always saw my skin color and hair as something to be ashamed of—something I should try to hide, cover up, straighten, or make to align more with the American standard of beauty. As I’ve grown up, I’ve slowly started to embrace who I am, kinky hair and all. In a classically modern wedding setting, I wanted to showcase that journey of self discovery with a sleek, elegant, and beautifully natural bride of color.
Read MoreMeet Shawnee Custalow of A Lovely Photo, a queer wedding photographer in Richmond, Virginia, who approaches weddings with curiosity and delight.
Read MoreOnce upon a time, a gentleman caller asked my grandpa for my aunt's hand in marriage. Grandpa asked him what he thought about my aunt working after marriage, and the dude said he hadn't thought of it. My grandpa kindly redirected the frat boy to suggest that he might want to talk to my aunt more before he proposed to her.
Read MoreThese two are incredibly in love. From their tearful first look to their romantic vows, Robie and Shaun's wedding took our breath away. Their reception was definitely a celebration of both their cultures and the support of their loved ones. There was even a Filipino Candle Dance and a choreographed number straight out of Bollywood! What an awesome night!
Read MoreJoin Jasmine in a no bullsh*t conversation with Lauren Caselli, owner and creator of Boss Lady Bash, as they discuss working in the cutthroat NYC wedding industry, creating a supportive space for female entrepreneurs, getting over "The Princess Complex," and speculate on marriage contract negotiations.
Read MoreThis styled shoot was a sophisticated rendition of the 80s. We wanted to balance the lightheartedness of love with the moody space of the venue to create an intriguing connection between everything. Our goal was to extract bigger elements of the decade and integrate that with architectural hard lines and edges. Everyone who worked on the shoot was a local Colorado business, and we were so proud to shine light on the diverse talent present in the Denver area.
Read MoreBoth of our parents walked each of us down the aisle, Anali’s brother officiated the ceremony, Scott’s sister was his best person, and our best friends and cousins occupied the rest of the wedding party. Nadya, Anali’s youngest cousin, sang to a beautifully played cello by a dear friend Daniel while we all walked. There standing under the glass globes hung from the redwood trees and filled with symbolic Persian elements, we said our vows.
Read MoreAdam Barehl and I decided that we’ll ask a different photographer to document our lives around our anniversary every year. So that over time, we can look back at our real life and see the mundane through someone else’s eyes…see all of the subtle changes over the years, like what the kitchen looks like or the growing number of gray hairs on our head. Thank you Sarah Mulder for these photos.
Read MoreFor me this photo challenge prompted a natural response to the current sociopolitical backlash to diversity, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. I put out a casting call in my local model group looking for alternative and underrepresented women. I knew from the start I wanted to show a same sex wedding, so when Gigi and Nicole were among my applicants the choice was easy.
Read MoreWith a small wedding of only our closest family present in mind, we then had to decide the type of ceremony we wanted. Neither of us is particularly religious so we didn't have strong ties to a specific wedding tradition. My mother however, is a member of the Society of Friends Church, or the Quaker church. She is considered a ‘convinced friend' — someone who joined the church rather than being born into a Quaker family. Through her, I learned about the elements of a Quaker wedding and thought that they would be perfect for our own ceremony. Quaker weddings, like all of their services and ceremonies, are not led by a priest or minister. Weddings are led by the bride and groom themselves. This appealed to us because it put the focus solely on our relationship. This part of the wedding was only possible because we were married in Pennsylvania, one of the few states that allows couples to marry without an officiant, know as a ‘self-uniting ceremony’ (Elyse's family is from Pittsburgh and her mom was the one who tipped us off on the choice).
Read MoreMeet Jaime Patterson of Hidden Exposure Photography, a woke wedding photographer in Richmond, Virginia, who believes that representation is critical, focusing much of her creative work on plus-size women.
Read MoreAs Meghan says, "Andre is the romance type!" After meeting in the computer lab when their class times overlapped, he asked her out and their first date was a scenic nighttime stroll through a field of fireflies. They found an alcove by a creek and talked in the moonlight for hours. When Andre proposed, he did it in a bed of flowers decorated with lights outside their favorite restaurant, and Meghan asked through her tears if she was dreaming. These picture-perfect milestones in their relationship reflect how picture-perfect their love is. It was such a delight to photograph them, the joy and affection just radiates off of them. It's like standing in the sun. It was an absolute treat to photograph them and I can't wait for their summer wedding!
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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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