Each month we will feature one amazing San Francisco City Hall wedding photography session on this page. booking information for your city hall wedding and additional photography galleries, please click the highlighted area. After viewing the gallery below, here are a few more weddings to look at:
Maya and Maciej signed up for our typical wedding coverage for their fabulous San Francisco city hall wedding. Little did they know that we would also provide them with a complimentary Maternity Portrait shoot as well! When the couple informed us towards the beginning of our wedding coverage that they were pregnant, we offered them a few maternity photos to go with their wedding pictures. We do this for all of our couples that ask for it. There is never any additional charge for this service. We always try to keep our wedding photography coverage as inexpensive as possible. We just intermix our normal wedding photography coverage, but add some maternity images. This can be done at the same time and with some of the same city hall backgrounds so very little additional time is spent. Our couple was thrilled to hear that they would be receiving "free" maternity wedding photos. Click here to see more information and additional galleries: San Francisco city hall weddings.
However, if you would prefer a more extensive maternity shoot to go along with your wedding pictures we offer a maternity wedding package. The cost for this package is an affordable $795 and you receive 2 hours of coverage. Included in this package is your civil ceremony, family pictures, and then extensive wedding and maternity photos throughout the building. No matter which package you choose, we promise to provide you with both types of images. We have a number of different specific maternity poses and we're also happy to listen to your ideas as well. You can also bring props or any other memorable items to the photo shoot.
The couple had their romantic city hall civil marriage in what some officiants call the Great Rotunda. It is the default place for city hall marriages and obviously one of our favorite spots to photograph. Maya and Maciej were able to keep their guest count fairly low which was a good thing since city hall is now enforcing the limit to 6. In the old days, couples could get away with bringing larger groups. If fact, some couples invited close to 20 people to their Rotunda ceremony. This no longer is allowed due to previous issues with noise and unruly guests.
One thing to note anyway, is that the Rotunda at city hall isn't really large enough to accommodate huge guest counts. So this works out well and makes the couple more comfortable and relaxed during their civil ceremony. Update for 2023: San Francisco City Hall has recently become a little more lax in enforcing the sixth guest rule limit. Enforcement of this rules appears to vary depending on who your marriage commissioner is. We continue to recommend that our wedding couples don't go too far over the 6 Guest limit just for safety's sake. It is pretty certain that you wedding will not be disrupted in any way if you keep your guest count to a reasonable level.
Immediately after the San Francisco city hall ceremony was complete, we lined up the guests to provide some beautiful and memorable family and friend photos. As SF city hall wedding photographers for many years, we understand how important this phase of the event is to the bride and groom. For that reason, we never rush through these pictures and make sure that our couple receives every family combination they want. In addition, we will often suggest combos that the bride and groom may not think about. In this way, we acknowledge that these pictures are important and a very key aspect of any wedding photography shoot.
We have heard in the past from some of our couples that they didn't appreciate other wedding photographers they had worked with who rushed through these shots. So we make sure to prioritize this, but also efficiently make our way through these pictures so the couple can start on the SF City Hall photo tour. One idea to make this part of the wedding go a little quicker is for the bride and groom to come up with a list of all the guest shots they want. This makes it more efficient for us and also helps the couple remember important family combinations. Here are some other great ideas for keeping your wedding guest and family photos amazing.
Once we completed all of the activity detailed above, it was time for the Newlywed's city hall photography tour. As usual, we escorted the couple throughout the building and covered all 4 floors with various backgrounds and poses. We always try to make this part of the wedding fun for the couple. We want them to look forward to their photo session! We accomplished this by not over posing the couple and keeping things light and fun. We also tried to do lots of dynamic posing, which means walking shots and other photos depicting movement. One of our favorites among these is the couple walking down the grand staircase. The Grand Staircase is the focal point at San Francisco City Hall and so it is important to display it as many ways as possible. It is also a central place for any type of photography going on including Quinceanera photographers who really love it there. Of course, it is also the most busy area at City Hall so some patience is usually needed.