This City Hall wedding photography gallery depicts a recent wedding that occurred on the Mayor's Balcony. This was a small wedding by Mayor's Balcony standards because usually brides and grooms that rent out this location usually have a much larger guest list. This particular Couple was more interested in having the privacy afforded by a reserved wedding despite the fact that they only had a small guest list. This happens more frequently than you might think especially when the price is only $1,200 for a beautiful venue and ceremony location. They still set up chairs for the few guests and made it very comfortable for everyone. I highly recommend chairs for ANY reserved wedding no matter how small because it lets people know where to watch from. If you allow your guests to stand, they frequently can get in the way of the proceedings or even the city hall wedding photographer! You are paying for the chairs whether you use them or not so you might as well have the Events Department set them up for you.
We say it so often, but we really do seem to attract some amazing couples for our San Francisco City Hall wedding photography shoots. This particular couple was definitely ready to have a great time and it shows in many of the wedding photos posted on this gallery. We captured many photos of the bride laughing and really enjoying the poses we set up for them. As we have mentioned elsewhere on this website, these city hall wedding pictures were made better by the couple's active involvement in the photography session. It is not absolutely necessary, but good couple interaction definitely will enhance your final photography result.
One nice surprise for this San Francisco City Hall wedding was the fact that the bride's father actually performed the ceremony. This made for a very personal wedding ceremony and enhanced experience for everyone who attended. As an aside, I will also say that considering that the bride's father was not an experienced officiant, he actually did an amazing job. One of the issues with weddings at San Francisco City Hall is there's lots of background noise. So this officiant managed to be heard above all that background sound and spoke very eloquently and sincerely. There are other skills that experience officiants possess and he seemed to understand most of them and made it a truly memorable town hall wedding ceremony. I have seen some of the regular Marriage Commissioners struggle sometimes with the background noise.
Once this 15 minute ceremony was completed we went right into photographing the family and friend pictures. We happily took pictures of every family group the newlyweds wanted and also some of their close friends. At the very end we did a group shot of the entire wedding party which was quite fun. We will always ask our couples if they have any additional family or friend shots that they want, because we know it is easy to miss these. We do not want to leave anyone out of your city hall wedding pictures! Sometimes this large group shot can actually be done on the Grand Staircase if not too crowded.