May 09, 2017

Catalyst Wedding Magazine

May 09, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

The Bridechilla Podcast is hosted by comedian, author, and your virtual bridesmaid, Aleisha McCormack. Each week, Aleisha shares her tell-it-like-it-is view and unique take on wedding wisdom to help Bridechillas and Groomchillas ditch the pressures and obligations that we sometimes feel during the journey and have fun planning this awesome day. Interviewing the leading wedding bloggers, planners, and experts, The Bridechilla Podcast is all about empowering couples to plan the wedding that they want.

May 02, 2017

Modern Rebel // Celebrating Friendship at Your Wedding Without the Bridesmaid Nonsense

May 02, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Modern Rebel & Co. is an alternative event planning company that gives back to local New York City non-profits. We interviewed the owner, Amy, about how to celebrate friendships at your wedding without making your friends begin to slowly resent you.

April 28, 2017

Autostraddle Stories // Coming Out and Coming Up Short

April 28, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

When I was 14, I stayed up late watching chick flicks, crying, and desperately hoping I could have a love that would set me free. Yes, I know, this is an unfortunately stereotypical story of a pubescent teenage girl pining for a relationship. I believed the best way to achieve happiness was through a happy monogamous relationship. Unfortunately, I had no idea (and still don’t know) what that looked like. After much trial and error, I later discovered being in a relationship and feeling free, without a healthy foundation, isn’t that simple.

April 10, 2017

Single, Straight Guys Daydream About Weddings, Too

April 10, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Yep. It is true. I am a single straight guy, and I do in fact dream about my wedding. It is something that I honestly cannot deny, and to that end, I do not feel the need to.In my estimation, weddings are a celebration of experiences, the excitement of future moments shared, and the opportunity to express these recognitions with loved ones that will hopefully continue to have an impression in my partner's and my life. What more could I ask for?

March 27, 2017

Inside the Fitting Room // Body Neutrality

March 27, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

In order for bridal boutiques to provide an inclusive and authentic experience, body neutrality needs to be the standard both online and in their daily interactions with customers. Unlike body-love, a state of complete body confidence, “body neutrality” instead emphasizes acceptance over loving one’s body. In other words, it’s the chill pill of the self-image revolution.

March 20, 2017

My Feminist Wedding // Making Our Own Wedding Rings

March 20, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Searching for wedding rings can be exhausting. There are seemingly millions of options — and you don’t want to choose something flippantly because it is something you plan to wear for the rest of your life. It should be special. It should mean something. You should love your ring, right? After all, the wedding ring symbolizes your never-ending, unbroken devotion to your chosen life partner. It’s a big deal.

March 09, 2017

My Feminist Wedding // Digging into Family History of Cultural Oppression

March 09, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

My grandparents were part of the buffer class unintentionally established by the Dutch over their three hundred and fifty years of colonialism in Indonesia. My very Asian-looking grandmother has the beautiful European name of Gladys, and her dark husband is named Renee. Throughout the years, a few stories and asides have been mentioned in passing by both of my grandparents, and a documentation of their experiences as teenagers in Indonesia was in process. Piecing together these stories results in a remarkable history of my family and culture.

February 22, 2017

Asking for Permission to Marry

February 22, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Once 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.

February 02, 2017

One Ceremony, Centuries of Patriarchy

February 02, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Then they enacted wedding ceremonies from three different eras — the 1700s, the 1950s, and the present — with costume changes for each. At the end of each ceremony, a certificate was handed to Levana that said: “You are now a full woman,” with an asterisk — the asterisk was “pending children.”

January 30, 2017

What It's Like to Combine Households Later In Life

January 30, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Prior to marriage, I’d lived alone for twenty years with no housemates other than felines; Steve had been bach’ing it with two boys for nine. Marrying at midlife comes with a lot of challenges: negotiating shifting family roles, re-learning how to share a bathroom, ensuring the bride’s cats don’t blind the groom’s dog in a territorial rage. But I’m not sure anything could have prepared us for the sheer amount of stuff.

January 16, 2017

Honey, Marry Whoever You Want

January 16, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

If she had chosen someone black, someone wealthier than her, someone, or anyone, else, there would still be commentary about it. There would still be outrage. The longer I've worked in this world, the more I realize that the wedding industry has little to do with weddings and everything to do with a public pronouncement of a woman's worth. Most wedding media enforces it; the whitest, slimmest, blondest, most feminine women deserve the gigantic rings, the most lavish productions, and most deserving partners (usually your run-of-the-mill dude-bro). That's who graces the covers and the ads that drive what I consider unnecessary hype.

January 11, 2017

Woke Wednesday // Meet Björn VW, New York City Wedding Planner

January 11, 2017/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Björn VW is the owner of Björn & Company, a New York event planning and design company, who also organizes Forks, Corks, & Cocktails, an annual LGBTQ Food, Wine, and Cocktail show.

December 27, 2016

The Bridal Norm // Inside the Fitting Room with Michelle Avitia

December 27, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

As a feminist wedding professional, I have a responsibility to challenge and critique the wedding industry. I work with brides each week, and in the intimate space of a fitting room I'm told about their greatest joys and anxieties. I owe it to them to make sure they're equally represented in an industry that continually discriminates against them.

December 23, 2016

Your Wedding Might Be a Good Time to Reconsider Other Unhealthy Relationships

December 23, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

It was when she didn’t show up for hair and makeup that morning that I realized something. And the clarity of this realization quickly defused the anger that was starting to build inside. Laura and I weren’t growing apart. We’d actually never really been friends.

December 22, 2016

5 Winter Weddings and Engagements to Keep You Warm

December 22, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Valdora and Isabel put their love and their desires for the day first. Which meant an early morning intimate wedding ceremony under the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park with only their closest friends in attendance. Later in the afternoon they invited a larger group of friends and family to celebrate a small ceremony, dinner and dancing a few hours north of New York City. It reflected their goals to create a day that invited their loved ones to be a part of their love, all while sticking to their guns in regards to having a small and beautiful wedding where they felt comfortable sharing vows and tears and promises.

December 21, 2016

Woke Wednesdays // Meet Chelo Keys, New Jersey Photographer

December 21, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Chelo Keys is a woke wedding photographer in New Jersey. In this interview with editor Liz Susong, she talks about growing up in New York, bringing her whole self to her creative work, and growing in her social justice values.

December 16, 2016

Are Feminist Weddings a Myth?

December 16, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

Emma Bedor and Catalyst Editor Liz Susong Debate the Concept of the Feminist Wedding

December 08, 2016

My Feminist Wedding // When I Said "Yes," I Learned to Say "No"

December 08, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

When 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.

November 16, 2016

A Tale of Two Brides: One Lesbian Couple's Struggle to Have a Christian Wedding

November 16, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

The 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.

October 18, 2016

Ireland's Road to Marriage Equality

October 18, 2016/ Catalyst Wedding Co

On 22 May 2015, more than 60 percent of Irish voters turned out to have their say on legalising same-sex marriage. An overwhelming 62 percent of them said “Yes” — and now gay couples in Ireland are saying “I do.”