We thought we would share some of our highest rated City Hall wedding pictures for 2024. We chose these pictures based on social media statistics that we gathered over the past year or so. When compiling these social media stats, we look at things such as “page likes” and social media shares. Obviously, the more shares the better.
The Winning San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photos are Displayed Below
The photos below come from one of our favorite weddings of 2023. They were chosen for this blog because they are quite typical of the types of San Francisco City Hall photos we often capture. As mentioned above, these were some of the most popular. The couple featured in the photos below, are just another example of some of the great brides and grooms we work with at San Francisco city hall. Katie and Kyle reserved the 4th Floor North Gallery to allow all of their guests to sit down in chairs and relax. They also roped off the entire side of the floor to allow the bridal party to have privacy from other weddings and tourists. This is of course typical of how the city hall Events department handles these types of reserved weddings. The cost for this is $1,000 for 1 hour of reserved time. Paying this extra price allows you to go over the 6 guest limit that Civil Ceremonies have to comply with. In fact, you can have 60 guests if you pay for a reserved San Francisco city hall wedding.
The Benefits of Having a More Typical Wedding
Don’t get me wrong, I love City Hall’s civil ceremonies as much as anyone. But some brides getting married at San Francisco City Hall want a more traditional wedding than would otherwise offered with a $100 civil ceremony. For those couples, a mayor’s balcony or 4th floor Reserve ceremony is the perfect solution. This couple was able to have a traditional wedding procession with the bride being led into the ceremony by her parents. It was nice to be the wedding photographer for this type of traditional wedding at San Francisco city hall. The happy groom enjoyed watching his bride as she came in with her parents.
After a 20 minute ceremony and some very romantic vows, the couple was married! Check out this relevant article comparing traditional weddings and civil ceremonies. It can be a tough decision to make for engaged couples. There is also the question about whether to incorporate some religion or faith into your wedding. These are difficult questions that almost every future bride and groom ponder. I found this great article that explores religion in wedding ceremonies even further.
The Importance of Family Pictures at a Wedding
The bride was very well prepared with a list of family photos that she provided us. We love it when the couple can give us a predetermined list of family groupings. It truly makes that part of the wedding go much faster allowing more time for the bride and groom formal photos throughout the building. More importantly, It assures that you don’t miss any important people. We began our formal bride and groom wedding pictures tour once we completed the family portraits. We escorted the happy couple around the building on what we call our “city hall photo tour”. As you might imagine, this tour involves leading the newlyweds around the building and taking pictures at some of the best spots. See below for some of our top rated photos of this wedding photography shoot.
Bride and Groom walking down the Grand Staircase
Details of the SF City Hall Photography Tour
We spent around 45 minutes going from floor to floor at San Francisco city hall and taking pictures at many of our favorite locations. It was unseasonably warm for an early February wedding so we took it slow to keep our bride fresh. We were also quite pleased with the lack of crowds for a Thursday. Normally Thursdays are the second busiest day at San Francisco city hall, but early February is a slower time here and we were blessed with no crowds and the opportunity to capture some great images.
With both the bride and groom letting us know that they were athletic, we asked them if they would be willing to do a lift shot. We wanted Kyle to pick up Katie and lift her high in the air in front of the city hall sign. Here is the fantastic result (below)! There are many different ways to pull off a classic bride and groom lift shot, here are some ideas from another website. A great celebration shot to cap of a wonderful City Hall wedding photo session. We will never force our push you into doing poses that seem to be challenging or dangerous. We just make suggestions and then we can discuss and do what you want.
We really enjoyed this wedding and helped this couple make memories for years to come.
