We photograph a high percentage of weddings with pregnant brides at San Francisco city hall. More than we even know about, I am sure. In one recent year, we photographed about 25 maternity brides out of 90 weddings. This is a high enough number to offer some helpful advice from our own experiences working with these great couples. Listed below are our 7 best ideas for your San Francisco City Hall maternity wedding! This also inspired us to develop a special package just for maternity weddings. More about that later. To Check out our City Hall wedding photography page, click the highlighted link.
- Timing is Everything! – Many City Hall Pregnant brides want to rush and get married very early on in their pregnancy. This may seem preferable to some couples, but there also reasons to hold off for a bit. First Trimester pregnancies can come with complications including morning sickness. The last thing you want to deal with on your wedding day is an upset stomach. It is important to enjoy your wedding day and this very well could take away from your experience. There are other issues that can come up in the first couple of months pregnancy and there is no need to go into detail here. Just consider waiting a bit and you may only have a small baby bump at that point or none at all!
- Choosing your Wedding Dress – Comfort is key here and there are many styles that will work even if you are showing. We recommend contacting your bridal shop prior to going in to let them know that you may need a maternity wedding dress or at the very least something that will comfortably accommodate your baby bump. Check out the above link for some exceptional ideas for maternity wedding dresses. One of the biggest problems we encounter is brides telling us that they went in for a fitting and when it came time to try on the dress, it was too tight. This, after receiving assurances from the bridal shop that this would be allowed for. We suggest you try to keep the final fitting as close as possible (we know limitations exist) to the actual wedding and MAKE SURE the shop allows for future changes. Do not rely on their assurance that the dress will always fit in the future.
- Bring Snacks and Hydrate – This suggestion may be obvious, but it is more important for pregnant brides. We will be doing a considerable amount of walking during our San Francisco city hall photo tour and so you will want to be fully prepared for that. We will allow you all of the time you need and will never rush through the photography portion of your wedding day. In general, city hall civil ceremonies are quite short, so this is an additional advantage to choosing this venue for your maternity wedding. The good news is that you will not have to stand in one place for more than about 4 minutes.
- Wear Comfortable Shoes – This is something we actually recommend for ALL our brides. Our non-pregnant brides quite often bring a change of shoes to use for walking to and from each of our city hall wedding photography locations. Our Maternity brides often decide to just wear comfortable shoes only. There are obvious reasons that make it even more important for a pregnant bride to wear comfortable shoes. This should eliminate the many problems that might result from trying to balance on high heels or getting sore feet.
- Receive 2 photography sessions for the price of 1! – We give all of our maternity city hall wedding couples the option to make part of their wedding photography session into a maternity shoot. What does this mean? It means that we will not only provide couples with the full compliment of wedding type poses at San Francisco city hall, but we will also suggest maternity poses. This is true for both the bride by herself and couple’s maternity pictures as well. The extent to which we do this is up to you. We often play it by ear and suggest maternity related photography poses where we feel it is appropriate. While it is true that taking some time for maternity related shots could take away a little of the emphasis on wedding poses, I don’t think it matters to most couples. This is because in reality, ALL of the photos we take on your wedding day are wedding pictures. We even have a special package for City Hall Maternity weddings!
- Bring Baby Related Items – Yes, its a wedding, but it is also a celebration of a future birth of a child. Most couples at this point have already gathered or been given certain types of baby related items. Outfits, teddy bears, and other similar things. Some couples also like to bring signs and incorporate them into their wedding/maternity photos. We had one couple place a plaque over the bride’s tummy that said “Baby on Board”. If you already know the gender of the child, perhaps a sign or colors that represents that. There are many fun ideas to try out and they can really enhance the shoot. We will be more than happy to incorporate these items into the photoshoot.
- Tell Your SF City Hall Wedding Photographer what you want – This one is important. I feel like it is the duty of the bride and groom to communicate their wishes related to the maternity aspect of the wedding photography session. Most importantly, does the bride want her tummy emphasized or hidden? Honestly, I go into many maternity photography sessions not really knowing and I don’t want to come across the wrong way or make the bride uncomfortable. The truth is, some brides want their tummy hidden for most, if not all of the photography session. We can do this with different kinds of posing techniques and judicious use of the floral bouquet to cover things up. Other brides want to emphasize their pregnancy or at the very least not worry about it for pictures.
Communication is Key
With all maternity weddings complete transparency and communication are key factors in the capturing the best wedding pictures for the bride and groom. However, we also know that many of our pregnant couples would rather not reveal their status and that’s fine too. It is especially a non-issue for us if the bride isn’t showing yet. It is none of our business and we do not try to make it our concern. Even with brides who are obviously showing, they may choose to not discuss it with us and that is perfectly fine too. We just want to offer our service and let our clients know that we are here to help if they have questions or concerns about their SF City Hall maternity wedding.
