This pride month is especially meaningful, as we mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising which brought visibility to LGBTQ+ issues and the community’s struggle for equal rights. We still face a great deal of discrimination in this world, but no one can dampen the light of love shone from these couples. To honor the sacrifice of every one who has helped the community reach this point, we are highlighting 50 moments of pure queer love and joy from past Catalyst couples. Thank you for sharing your love and light with us and the world!

The stress to perform and pull off a wedding flawlessly can make anyone crack, but add in the pressure of complicated family dynamics and, baby, you’ve got the perfect recipe for a volatile soufflé on the edge of collapse.

We posed the question to our vendors: “Should you tell your wedding party what to wear?” The short answer: It’s complicated.

San Francisco is one of those cities that’s both magic and really authentic. It doesn’t apologize for being itself, and neither do its couples. The average wedding spend for 100–200 guests is $63,00–105,00. San Francisco is also home to the nation’s biggest Pride events. You can only imagine the magic that comes from a city priding itself on authenticity and artistic expression, not to mention the beautiful views and venues at your disposal!

Kathy and Kim's wedding was featured last month, and now they are having a baby. Here are their maternity photos, photographed by their wedding photographer Chloe Jackman, with words by Katy. 

Kim & Katy’s Livermore wedding was a celebration after my very own heart: chock-full of love, funky, and homemade, the most one-of-a-kind event you can imagine. The pair met volunteering at Pride 2008 in the city, and apparently it was magnetic attraction at first sight! Katy did some shady underhanded redistribution of teams to end up working with Kim, while Kim “lost” her truck to give them more time to talk. They were on the phone the very next day, and the rest is a story that’s just begun!

I LOVE SF City Hall! It is hands down one of my favorite venues ever!  So of course I was going to make sure we got to tie the knot there, and since we knew we didn't want to jump through all the hoops needed to legally get married in Mexico, like the blood test, my City Hall Dream worked out perfectly.  

“Calling all shapes, sizes, colors, vibes, and unicorns! It’s your story, baby, tell it your way.”

Meet the Unicorn Photographer, Chloe Jackman.

She’s based in the Bay Area, and she is a multifaceted photographer “with freckles, a fro, some glitter and sass.”

“Let’s talk about real love,” she says, getting straight to the point. “I want couples to tell their story their way. However your wedding looks, it’s your chance to express yourselves as a couple, and it’s beautiful.”

The pair was planning an August wedding at the Berkeley Botanical Gardens, but given the current political climate they decided to move up their legal ceremony. I donated this session as a part of Catalyst Wed Co’s movement to support LGBTQ and undocumented couples in the wake of the election. Thomas, Craig, and I gave $500 to the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth, in lieu of the session fee.

Julie and Christina are an interfaith, interracial lesbian couple who enhance, rather than diminish, each facet of their individual lives in their wedding(s!). The pair, who met playing roller derby in Ohio, hosted their first wedding at a gorgeous synagogue in San Francisco followed by an all-out reception at Fire House 8. Their follow-up wedding was held in their home state of Ohio with only their closest friends and family. This is a couple who really knows where their values lie and were able to create the best of all worlds: the extravagant, fun and exciting San Francisco wedding contrasted with a humble, family-oriented celebration in the majestic fall forest of Hocking Hills, Ohio. Their story is beautiful; the pictures speak for themselves. Julie & Christina’s magnetic energy truly comes through in this intoxicating series of photos.