It’s no secret that weddings generate a huge amount of waste. With the pressure to have the perfect picturesque day comes the impulse to buy lots of items to make your wedding more beautiful. If you care about our planet, then here are just a few things you can do to cut down on waste during your wedding day.

We’ve talked about toxic parents, now it’s time to talk about...well, you. Sometimes the toxicity you need to avoid to enjoy your wedding planning is coming from you. This is a guide for how to check-in with yourself and also check yourself to avoid turning into a flesh-eating zombie.

Music has the power to control what the overall experience of your wedding and reception will be like, and it’s important you have a good idea of what you’re looking for before you select your entertainment for your wedding.

Printing your invitations at home is one great option to consider, but a few small mistakes could lead to a serious Pinterest Fail situation. Before you commit to printing your wedding invitations at home, consider these 8 guidelines.

Given that marriage is now defined more by personal desire rather than economic necessity, do we need to keep marriage a forever thing? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have renewable marriages of varyng lengths based on your needs — say two to five years if you want to experience married life before deciding to have children or not (because living together is not the same as marriage in the eyes of the law and even your friends and family), or 18 years if you’ve made that leap and wish to raise them to adulthood?

"As the editor of the LGBTQ+ wedding blog H&H Weddings, I’ve observed that same-sex couples and gender nonconforming couples are leading the way in gender-fluid wedding wear trends. Here are some of my favorites that I’d like to see a whole lot more of."

Jasmine talks with Catalyst Wedding Magazine's Editor in Chief, Liz Susong, about long-distance marriage, racism and sexism in the wedding industry, making peace with discomfort, and finding more reasons to celebrate.

With 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). 

My name is Kate. I was born near the white mountains of New Hampshire, grew up in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, had a few-year stint in Brooklyn, and have settled for the time being in Richmond, VA. My most recent blissful moment was standing atop a glacier lagoon in Iceland with my medium format film camera. My happiest place is around a table with wine, home-cooked food, friends and family in abundance.