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!

Donal and Jon aren’t religious so they opted for a Humanist ceremony. Following a meeting with their chosen celebrant Sally O’Kelly they knew straight away that Sally was the perfect fit for them. She talked them through the process and how best to decide upon the script for the ceremony.

Keeping it short, including special readings, music, and the inclusion of mothers of the grooms to light the unity candle and as witnesses made the ceremony that extra bit special.

Donal and Jon decided not to include their own written vows but instead used a slightly more traditional script, not only because otherwise they would have been too emotional to speak, but because they felt the traditional script suited their feelings towards marriage and each other.

Lilly and James (yes, really!!) are self-confessed geeks with a love of all things Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Batman, Star Wars, and just about everything else in between. They wanted an engagement session that really reflected who they are, so they opted to do it in Southend-on-Sea, a little English seaside town where Lilly grew up and both she and James spent a lot of time together early on in their relationship. They chose to start at an amazing coffee shop they know called Utopia. It's full of quirky furniture, interesting decor, and the food and coffee is pretty damn good, too. After working their way through a slice of raspberry cake and relaxing a bit more in front of my camera, we strolled over to James' favourite place, the local comic book store, where he could wander around and choose a few of his favourite graphic novels to take home with him. Then, for Lilly, we headed to a bookstore just around the corner where we mooched around opening and sniffing all the new books (aaah!). Finally, we finished by wandering down to the seafront, buying ice creams, and getting a few final shots on the shore.