I will admit to having a soft spot for big Italian weddings, especially in San Francisco. As an Italian myself who grew up attending large Italian parties, I have experienced the amazing food and fun traditions with my family. Plus, I certainly have attended (as a guest) many Italian wedding in San Francisco over the years for people I know. Through the years we have also photographed quite a few Italian weddings in San Francisco and have enjoyed every one of them. Some of these have come from friend and family connections and some just by referral. The events we have covered have largely been in North Beach with a Catholic Ceremony at Saints Peter and Paul Church followed by a reception at the Italian Athletic club. Quite a few other ceremony locations have also be part of our San Francisco wedding photography background. This includes many catholic churches and other types of venues, including San Francisco city hall.
San Francisco Wedding Receptions and Churches
There are also many other popular spots in the city to have the wedding reception party including Original Joe’s and the North Beach Restaurant (recently under new ownership). We have covered wedding receptions at both of those locations and many more. As mentioned above, there are also many other churches throughout San Francisco where weddings are held and we have probably been to all of the big ones. Old Catholic San Francisco churches take a bit more skill because they tend to be darker and of course you cannot use flash during the ceremony. For the most part, these older churches WILL allow us to use lighting equipment for other parts of the celebration, just not during the active ceremony. Thankfully, we can use flash when the everyone walks in and walks out! The processional and recessional. Although with today’s low light camera technology it is possible to shoot in these conditions, having some sort of light is definitely beneficial. We do what we can, but make sure we are always unobtrusive and follow the rules of the church or reception hall.
A more recent wedding that we really enjoyed being a part of was Jayne and Bobby’s wedding, which I have pictured here. One of the most fun couples we have photographed and we are still in touch with them today. They had a very typical Italian wedding with a big feast for their reception. Lots of Italian dishes and pasta, but so much more. If you love Italian food, try to get an invitation to a wedding like this one. Many of the other typical wedding events took place at their reception including The First Dance, Father-Daughter Dance and cutting the cake. As the night grew later, the dancing started in full swing and the party really got going. Check out part 2 of this blog post to read about more details of their wedding reception. This entire wedding and ceremony took place in North Beach, but then we took them to the Marina for some photos. Here are a few sample shots from this great wedding in San Francisco.
San Francisco Marina District Wedding Photography
Once they completed their ceremony at San Francisco’s famed North Beach Church, we headed off to the Marina district to capture some nice photos of the newlyweds in some of their favorite spots. We also brought the entire wedding party with us so we could include them in some of the photos. It was a hazy day, but we were still able to catch faint glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge in some of the backgrounds. The groom was slightly disappointed that we were not able to take photos at an old baseball field that he has played at for years, but this did not dampen anyone’s spirits. There was a big game going on at the time! We thought briefly about going out there anyway to grab a few quick shots, but our time was running short to get back to the reception. We were fighting Marina traffic to some extent and the newlyweds were eager to get to their party!
After photographing the wedding party and best man and maid of honor, we focused on the bride and groom only. Here are a few shots from this section of the wedding. Even the limo ride going through the Marina district was fun. San Francisco residents have a history of loudly congratulating newlyweds. To add to this, both the bride and groom spend lots of time in San Francisco and tend to know people in their neighborhood so that people recognized them and applauded. Definitely a fun wedding and a great couple to work with. I was surprised during the limo ride how many people recognized them like they were celebrities or something.
Part 2 – The Wedding Reception and big Italian wedding party!