{"id":245,"date":"2026-08-27T22:25:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T22:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/?p=245"},"modified":"2026-08-27T22:25:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T22:25:49","slug":"past-favorite-city-hall-weddings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/past-favorite-city-hall-weddings\/","title":{"rendered":"Past Favorite San Francisco City Hall Weddings, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"April<\/a> April and Michael posing at SF City Hall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought it would be fun to share an ongoing series of wedding blog posts<\/a> <\/strong>regarding some of our favorite past weddings and couples.\u00a0 We have had so many great experiences in our 1,000 + San Francisco city hall weddings that it is really hard to focus on just a few, but some do stand out due to the fun time we had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see more wedding photography portfolio pictures,\u00a0 please go to our City Hall Wedding HOME PAGE.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will feature 2 recent weddings with each blog post. I often think what sets certain couples apart is the relationship we build with them both during and sometimes after the photoshoot.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>We feature over 25 City Hall weddings on this website with all different kinds of themes and San Francisco locations. You should be able to find a SF City Hall wedding that matches your own style and culture.\u00a0 Seeing a wedding portfolio similar to your own may help give you some assurance about the photographer. It also allows you to visualize how your wedding pictures may turn out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"San San Francisco City Hall Staircase\"Waving Waving Goodbye after their ceremony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracy and James – San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We have learned over the years some of the secrets to finding the best wedding photography spots at city hall<\/a><\/strong> . In addition, we have discovered the best time of the day to shoot at particular locations within the building.\u00a0 The Bride, Tracy especially was up for anything and wanted to try lots of new poses and ideas.\u00a0 We did extreme dip poses,\u00a0 window shots and some new Grand Staircase angles and ideas.\u00a0

A bonus for this wedding is that Tracy submitted some of our shots to the J. Crew catalog and got our wedding featured on that publication for a few years.\u00a0 This ended up being a great marketing feature for us and we were very appreciative for her efforts on our behalf. She had nothing personally to gain by doing this, but was just trying to help us out. We were honored that the J. Crew catalog thought enough of our San Francisco city hall photos to feature them. I have been told that our wedding pictures are still on the website, but I have never been able to find them again.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few shots below from this fun San Francisco city hall wedding.\u00a0 This photo below is one of the ones that made the J. Crew Catalog and also happens to be a favorite of ours.\u00a0 We often give our couples some pretty detailed instructions on how to pull this pose off but Tracy and James pretty much did this one on their own.\u00a0 They seemed natural at doing this wedding dance pose<\/a> <\/strong>and this made the photos look very authentic. It is also important to note that they are not straining and seem to be genuinely having a great time when posing for these shots. This is one example we give our brides and grooms to show how to do fun dance dip pose at SF City Hall. Please note how the Groom’s right leg is placed behind the Bride to help support her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next photo, which was captured in the window is no longer allowed at city hall, but used to be one we always loved doing.\u00a0 Due to safety reasons and wear and tear on historic San Francisco city hall, this particular location was banned by building management. The light was perfect that day with not too much coming through the window.\u00a0 The lack of back light makes it a bit easier to pull off.\u00a0\u00a0Backlight is always a concern when you’re shooting into a window because it can cause lack of contrast or silhouettes.\u00a0 More importantly, it can cause the primary subjects to go sort of gray and look like ghosts. I have seen this on many other City Hall wedding photography websites.\u00a0 We have enough power in our off-camera flash\u00a0 that this is usually not a problem.\u00a0 The technique here is to power through the backlight and illuminate the couple with off-camera lighting.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"San<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Leg<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\"Deep Deep Dance Dip Post at San Francisco City Hall Leg Kick on the Mayors Balcony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April and Michael –\u00a0 SF City Hall Wedding Photography <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This wedding was one of our first marriages where the couple asked us to provide them with extensive yet affordable wedding photography coverage that also included taking pictures at their Reception.   We provided  April and Michael with a special package that included full city hall wedding coverage and 3 locations around San Francisco.  We finished up in Downtown SF at their wedding reception site for a short time. This particular wedding was where we got the idea to offer extended coverage and multiple San Francisco locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout this extensive wedding photography tour they were always a delight to work with and so much fun.\u00a0 We love upbeat couples like April and Michael and they really represent some of the major reasons we enjoy shooting weddings at this incredible venue.\u00a0 They paid the extra money to have a reserved wedding on the 4th floor of San Francisco city hall. The Event Department charges $1,200 for this type of reserved wedding. This allowed the bride and groom to invite a large number of guests to attend their San Francisco city hall wedding with seating for everyone. Couples also need to hire their own officiant when utilizing this option. We can help with referrals if you need an officiant.\u00a0 We know many officiants with substantial city hall experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone really seemed to enjoy watching this great bride and groom get hitched.\u00a0 As you can see from the photos below, we completed the shoot at Michael Mina restaurant in San Francisco, which was their reception location.\u00a0 As you can also see, they had some luck outside of San Francisco city hall when this Cable Car bus showed up out of the blue.\u00a0 This allowed them to take an iconic Cable Car shot! It wasn’t planned it just happened.

We chose to do a front angle of the cable car to make it look more authentic. A side view would have shown the tires on the trolley which would have made it obvious that it wasn’t a true cable car. For more information about San Francisco’s iconic cable car system<\/a><\/strong> please click the link.\u00a0 Imagine that, the cable car line now goes right past San Francisco city hall!\u00a0 Well, not really, but for this picture we can pretend it does! Too bad it doesnt.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Wedding<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\"Ring Ring Exchange at City Hall ceremony <\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Walking<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Bride<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"4th<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April and Michael posing at SF City Hall I thought it would be fun to share an ongoing series of wedding blog posts regarding some of our favorite past weddings and couples.\u00a0 We have had so many great experiences in our 1,000 + San Francisco city hall weddings that it is really hard to focus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,25,5],"tags":[259,258,37,52,384,386,385,311,232,54,310],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-hall","category-san-francisco","category-weddings","tag-affordablecityhallweddingphotographer","tag-bestcityhallweddingphotographers","tag-city-hall-weddings","tag-cityhallweddings","tag-courthousewedding","tag-courthouseweddingpictures","tag-courthouseweddings","tag-pastweddingarchives","tag-sanfranciscocityhallweddingphotographer","tag-weddingphotographer","tag-weddingreception"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4282,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/4282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}