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This was not actually a wedding at San Francisco city hall because the couple was already married when they arrived at the building. The bride and groom came here to celebrate their recent nuptials and have some beautiful photo taken of them along with their close friends and family. Drawn to City Hall by it’s historic beauty, this couple was up for the full Photo Tour around the premises. We took them to every single floor and took pictures of them in front of some of the more famous backgrounds. Since there was no ceremony that day it gave us even more time to explore all the beautiful photo spots and San Francisco City Hall. The Grand Staircase, the Rotunda and the Mayor’s Balcony were all included in their celebratory wedding photos. They really loved the architecture and asked us to highlight it in their photos. We took a few more wide angle city hall wedding images than normal to make sure we captured what they asked for. Of course it was also very important to make sure that we showed the colorful sarees that were being worn by the participants. So for that reason we also made sure to take plenty of close ups.
Our San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photo Tour
The photos above were taken during our Photo Tour of San Francisco city hall. We shot the upper image from across the entire building and captured the couple enjoying each other while doing a little dance spin. We used a telephoto lens to enable us to get this much of a close up of the couple from clear across the building. The photo just above was taken on the upper half of the Grand Staircase and makes it appear that there is nobody else in the building. Of course, there were plenty of people, but we were able to time the photo so nobody was in the field of view. We call this our photo tour, because we escort the newlyweds on a exciting grand tour of the building and stop at each floor at various backgrounds. This article from Brides magazine provides great information about Indian wedding traditions.
Highlighting Indian Wedding Sarees in Pictures
The above 2 photos were taken on the 3rd floor in front of the relatively famous North facing window. This is a very popular location for city hall wedding photographers because of the great light that comes in through these windows. In this particular instance, it was getting dark, but I still like the background design of the window. As it gets darker outside, the window design becomes a little more subtle, but this can also add to the photo in a unique way. As you can see, the colors of the Wedding Sarees make an amazing contrast to the grey backgrounds of San Francisco City Hall. Many Indian brides choose to wear both a traditional wedding dress and the saree. They would normally change into the wedding dress for the reception. Many Indian brides feel like it is appropriate to wear the sari during the traditional ceremony but then put on a white wedding dress for the party. Of course having specialized in Indian weddings for many years I have seen it done both ways.
Despite the fact that our bride was wearing a colorful Saree I still wanted to include a few black and white images as you can see above. I always feel that Monochrome images put more of the focus on the subjects and less on what they are wearing. Obviously, it is a good idea to supply both types of images for the newlywed’s picture album. This will give them variety in the photos they chose.
In some ways, we wanted to make this celebration similar to a typical Indian wedding so we tried to include pictures of the Henna, bracelets and other decorations. It was a bit more of a challenge at city hall, but it definitely worked and we were able to create some amazing memories for this couple. Since we have specialized in Indian wedding photography for many years, we know many of the traditional shots that Indian couples expect. This experience makes us an ideal choice to photography Indian weddings at San Francisco city hall.
