Catalyst Wedding Co. Blog

Catalyst Wedding Co features New York based wedding planner, Carissa Campbell. Find out about her journey that led to creating Campbell Events, her design style, current favorite trends, and what community means to her.

Catalyst Wedding Co features New York based wedding photographer, Amy Sims. Find out about her journey that led to creating Amy Sims Photography, her photography style, current favorite trend, and what community means to her.

Mark and I are both actors, we met when Mark’s best friend introduced the two of us on Facebook. I was performing a show in Las Vegas so we got to know one another over FaceTime for weeks before Mark flew to Vegas to meet me. The rest is history.

We met on OKCupid in October 2018. Our first date was at a coffee shop in Center City, Philadelphia, followed by a walk along the Schuylkill River, and our first kiss was on our second date at an Afro-futurist party at the Tiberino Museum in West Philadelphia. Over the next few months, we bonded over our shared love of books, spirituality, art, and travel.

A couple years prior to our wedding, Karen and I had gone up to the Okanagan for the first time ever. Traveling on the road up there and finally getting there felt like we had escaped the city and gotten to a little piece of peacefulness in this vast province.

“We are a #tindermarriage! One of our first dates was at a drive-in movie on a warm spring night!

We swept right and the rest is history. We matched on Tinder during Jordan's first visit to NYC, a year post college. Without ever meeting in person that weekend, we texted, chatted on the phone, and Skyped for four months.

“My inspiration for this wedding party styled shoot come from the night skies in Oregon. When you get away from the city, the stars truly are nature showing off. I wanted to bring the stars to the city.”

We arrived at the Dry Lake Beds just before 9 a.m. to bright sun and high winds. Jordan and Ashley were full of bubbly laughter and gave us the best genuine, affectionate cuddles to photograph — as well as some high-energy windy runs across the lake bed!

When it came time for our engagement, we ended up proposing to each other at the same time while we were in Disney World with my family. Before dinner one night in Epcot, my sister was taking a picture of us and I got down on one knee and proposed. Little did I know, Sara was also planning on proposing that night.

The grove of trees that we chose was utterly perfect. The trees were in a small circle and the brides had an intimate space to celebrate and renew their vows. We then decorated the ring of trees to feel like an actual little room in the woods.

We splurged on paying for our cat O’Malley to spend the two nights with us in the hotel. The Boro is pet friendly and we knew we wanted him in on the wedding photographs. He played a key role in the proposal itself so he needed to be there!

Othello and I met more than twenty years ago. It was a chance meeting. We exchanged phone numbers with little expectation that we would ever talk again. Our first call initiated conversations that would establish a foundation of familiarity, comfort, trust, and love.

We really wanted to hit home the idea of a minimalistic approach. Sometimes weddings can become all about the bells and whistles. We wanted the simplistic decor to shine while also showcasing the amazing talent of each vendor.

As we were hiking up we started to see the horizon line glowing pink. We made it to the top just in time for the beautiful alpenglow on the mountains. Lauren and Cydney got ready together, and re-read their vows from their original wedding day. We sat around with warm drinks, chatting and enjoying the view, and then hiked back down the mountain together.

When it came to choosing models, we really wanted to focus on joy. Wedding days are full of joy, so we wanted to make sure marriers could see themselves in that. Grace and TJ perfectly fit that bill, you can practically hear Grace’s laughter by just looking at her.

“We stayed up until 4 a.m. talking about everything and anything. It was as easy as breathing. On the other hand, working up the courage to kiss her was not — it took me all night! I have never felt this comfortable and excited, and as we have talked literally every day since we met, both our feelings have only grown.”

It was incredibly important to both of us to wear exactly what we wanted at our wedding, not whatever may be expected by wedding standards or by anyone else we know. Personal style is so empowering, and we wanted to feel our most powerful, radiant, and joyful.

Most of the time, all wedding planning advice boils down to the same thing: What has the most meaning for you and your partner? That reality can be one of the most frustrating parts of planning a wedding; it’s both highly individual and inherently cookie-cutter.

It was really important to me to bring on a real LGBTQ+ couple, and not just two models. I also loved being able to represent plus size women and work with Love and Lace Bridal to find something they would look amazing in. The more I work with publications and the wedding world in general, these are two areas in which I see a lack of content.