City Hall Wedding Photographer 15 Years Of Wedding Photography Experience At San Francisco City Hall
Usually the first thing couples do after selecting their day is hire a professional photographer to capture the beauty of your wedding day in the magnificent surroundings of SF City Hall. The process can be daunting, but the decision should narrow down to what photographer is going to produce the best wedding photos in a stress-free way, on any day and condition at City Hall. When you choose to have your wedding at San Francisco City Hall, you know that you are getting an incredibly unique and beautiful location for your ceremony and photos. But what many couples may not realize is that the photography opportunities at City Hall are truly exceptional. With grand staircases, ornate ceilings and hallways, and stunning views of the cityscape, there are many amazing photo spots to be found at City Hall.San Francisco City Hall is a popular destination for weddings, so it’s important to book your photographer well in advance.If you’re looking for someone who knows how to make the most of this amazing location, Ken Mendoza has been shooting weddings at City Hall for over a decade, and his experience shows in the beautiful photos he captures there.
Book An Experienced San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photographer
Our experienced San Francisco City Hall wedding photographers are ready to give you the best possible experience at one of the Bay Areas most treasured and architecturally superb public spaces.
In addition to our signature wedding photography collections, we also offer tailored elopement collections with our San Francisco City Hall wedding photographer team to ensure absolutely anyone can afford a magical wedding photoshoot on their big day.
ELOPEMENT COLLECTION STARTING AT $725 FOR 90 MINUTES
We have collections to accommodate both smaller and larger San Francisco City Hall wedding services including elopements taking place in other locations around the Bay Area.
The Best Photography Locations In San Francisco
We have discussed some of the best places for wedding photography inside of city hall, now let’s talk about the rest of San Francisco as a great place for pictures. After your San Francisco city hall ceremony, we will take you on a tour of the building to photograph you and your new spouse. Many of our city hall customers want more photos and ask us to take them to other locations around San Francisco. By booking either of our San Francisco Photo Tours including the “San Francisco Romance” or “Enchantment” Packages, we will escort you to other destinations in the city for photos. There are so many wonderful places within the city for wedding photography. Let’s explore below some of the best locations to go for romantic wedding photography in the city by the bay.
The Japanese Tea Gardens – Another beautiful photo spot in San Francisco. Parking is tough and be prepared for a good walk! There will be lots of people in the background, but it’s possible to avoid them by visiting certain areas of the garden and we know where these beautiful locations are. The Tea Gardens are in Golden Gate park – another nice photo location. Plan on making this a large part of your day. It’s not something that can be done quickly, but wedding photography here can be absolutely incredible. There is a reason that people come to the Japanese Tea Gardens from all over the world. Make this one of your destinations after your San Francisco city hall wedding.
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Top 5 Reasons To Marry In San Francisco
Why do people from all over the world come to “Everybody’s Favorite City” to get married? There are so many reasons to visit this beautiful town, but is it really a good destination wedding locale? With it’s fantastic weather, incredible views, historic sites, art work, and so much more, San Francisco really does have it all. if you need useful tips to help planning your wedding at SF City Hall, we offer a free email based service, click the link to find out more. We are happy to provide this advice as a community service at no charge to the customer. San Francisco really is one of the highest rated wedding destinations so let’s explore some of the main factors engaged couples consider when making the all important decision of where to get married.
City Hall Wedding Photography Lighting
People often ask us about the optimum time for premium photographic light in the building and it really depends on the circumstances. Because of the fog, the natural light is unpredictable, but we have found that no matter what the weather conditions, there are plenty of exceptional photo options at city hall. I think most San Francisco city hall wedding photographers agree that there is always a great place to go in the building to obtain great photos. In addition, we always bring professional strobe lighting and umbrellas to refine and improve the quality of light when needed. When the sun is shining brightly outside, the 3rd and 4th floor offer some amazing natural light photographic opportunities. We bring off- camera flash that helps create soft directional light and adds drama to your city hall photos. If you compare our lighting techniques to photos taking with on-camera flash, the difference is incredible. In addition, this type of lighting helps in some of the darker areas like the Mayor’s Balcony.
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How To Get Married In San Francisco
Getting married in San Francisco seems like a dream for many engaged couples. After all, the Bay Area is known for its natural beauty and vibrant lifestyle. You can find more information on wedding and marriage requirements on this website. In order to get married, partners need to apply and pay for a marriage license issued by a county clerk. You’ll need to hold your wedding ceremony within 90 days. As a result, plan your elopement or wedding fairly soon after getting the marriage license. Your ceremony must also be performed by an officiant or another authorized person.
San Francisco City Hall Wedding Ceremony Hours And Times
One thing to know about getting married at City Hall is that its kind of a wedding circus but thats certainly not a bad thing, in fact its pretty fun! On any given day City Hall marries dozens upon dozens of couples. Wedding ceremonies take place Monday through Friday between the hours of 9:00am and 3:30pm. Ceremonies take place every half hour and there are 3 slots per hour. In our experience, the busiest day of the week is always Friday. Ceremonies are super quick lasting only about 5 to 10 minutes total. Due to the expedited timeframe, its best to leave family and couple portraits until after your ceremony.
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City Hall Wedding Albums And Prints Available
We offer our San Francisco city hall customers many options in addition to our quality photographic coverage. We can put together a gorgeous and yet affordable professional wedding album for you or a music slideshow of your wedding images. One of the added benefits of ordering a wedding album is that we give each of your selected photos a second round of editing. This special treatment will sometimes include facial retouching and removal of distracting background items such as Exit signs and tourists. This can especially be useful if you happen to choose a busy day for your wedding because we can remove people from the background using Photoshop . We can also provide beautiful wall portraits and small prints with a number of different framing treatments that you can compare. Wedding albums are one of the best ways to display your treasured San Francisco city hall images and we are currently offering them at a discount. Another added bonus is that we will provide you with all of the wedding album digital files, which include the special edits. Not all wedding photographers at San Francisco city hall offer these complete services to their clients. Ask us for more details about our beautiful prints and professional wedding albums.
Wedding Photographers San Francisco City Hall
One of the premiere San Francisco city hall wedding photographers with over 10 years of experience taking pictures at this amazing building. We are creating memories at SF City Hall every week and would love to be your wedding photographers! For more information about our affordable service, click on any of the links at the top of this page including our San Francisco city hall pricing and availability. We are happy to answer any questions you might have about our packages and prices. To read our team’s professional photographer bios, click our About Page. To view our wide variety of San Francisco city hall wedding galleries please click the link. Our small of team of experienced wedding photographers has had the pleasure of photographing over 700 City Hall couples from around the world and we would love to work with you. We look forward to you choosing us to be your San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photographers!
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Special Engagement And Wedding Photography Package
We recently added a new package to our many offerings. We call it our City Hall PLUS Engagement package. This affordable package includes 1.5 hours of city hall coverage combined with a separate day engagement portrait session. The engagement session can take place anywhere in San Francisco and includes up to 1 hour of photographic coverage with 2 locations Engagement sessions will normally be done with more casual clothing and a much looser environment. We like to keep the session fun and will do a lot less posing and encourage more interactive behavior during the engagement shoot. Listed below are some example of the types of pictures we like to create for a typical San Francisco engagement portrait session:
- Casual walking shots, couple hand-in-hand. Laughing, kissing and just strolling along!
- Park Bench interaction – the couple just sits and talks. They are encouraged to be playful if they want.
- Light shoving matches where the couple playfully push each other and laugh. We get some great ones!
- Piggy back rides or other types of lifting by the groom . Why not?
- Walking barefoot on the beach and ignoring the camera, couples looks at each other or ahead.
- Street photography in downtown San Francisco or other busy area. We just follow you around.
- Stopping for a drink at a local Restaurant or bar in the City Just kidding.
- This can even be done at city hall, even though it may be a bit redundant
- Jumping shots or running on the beach. Especially Baker Beach!
Tell Us Your Photography Style
We want to know your own style and personality so we can make sure these attributes show through in your final digital images. Just recently we were almost done with a shoot, and I asked the couple if there was anything else they wanted us to do. They quickly mentioned that they wanted a photo sitting on the Grand Staircase looking up towards the Rotunda. This is a picture we have done before, but I wasn’t thinking of it for this particular wedding. The fact that they mentioned it guaranteed that we obtained that meaningful image for them. Do you like mostly candid, photojournalist, or traditional photos? Our Brides and Grooms often let us know some of their favorite poses and San Francisco locations and we are happy to accommodate them. When asked, many couples choose the Grand Staircase, but we occasionally get surprised with their selected photographic locations and that’s a great thing! If you would prefer to just leave it all up to us, that is fine too.
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Do You Have A Pricing Guide
We sure do! We even a special pricing guide that is dedicated to our San Francisco City Hall wedding photographer team. Head to our main contact page, fill out the form there, & the pricing guide will be sent automagically back to the email address you provide!
ANSWER:
QUESTION:
Yes, here’s the website for civil ceremonies at SF City Hall & here’s the website for private ceremonies .
Best Day To Avoid Crowds At Sf City Hall
Without a doubt the most common question we are asked is: “What is the preferable day of the week to get married at city hall to avoid the crowds?” There are actually 2 parts to the answer because the time of the day also matters. Most people would assume that Friday is the most crowded and that is definitely true. Fridays are the days with the largest amount of reserved ceremonies on the Mayor’s Balcony and the 4th Floor North Gallery. Since reserved ceremonies do not have the 6 person restriction that the standard civil ceremonies have, it is not uncommon to see hundreds of people milling about on Fridays. Add summer tourists or visitors and you have a recipe for what we wedding photographers call “Crazy Friday.” Thursday’s are not much better, but definitely preferred over Friday because there seems to be less tourists. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the slowest days at city hall followed closely by Monday. Monday normally brings more business related visits to city hall and so there is a bit more foot traffic around the building. We don’t let crowds get in our way and we know how to make the most of the space available!
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About Our San Francisco City Hall Galleries
The galleries above represent our best effort to show our future Brides and Grooms a wide variety of wedding coverage. We have combined videos, ceremonies, formal photos and even check-in procedures to ensure you witness all the possible city hall activities. We have decided not to just show you a greatest hits compilation from our best weddings, but instead we present a true cross section of the types of marriages we photograph at San Francisco city hall every week. In our opinion, it is very important that you have a thorough understanding of how your own wedding pictures will turn out. Reviewing a compilation collection of 1 photo from multiple different weddings doesn’t really give you that understanding. This is why we provide you at least 10 pictures per wedding and often much more. This, hopefully will allow you to visualize how your wedding pictures might turn out. If you want to see our “greatest hits” compilation gallery we DO have one and you can check out our San Francisco city hall photography home page. We have about 100 photos from just about the same number of weddings. This main gallery will also provide you with a good sense of wide variety of weddings we have done over the past 12 years at SF City Hall. Other compilation galleries listed above include our Architecture Page and also our LGBTQ portfolio.
Greatest City Hall Ceremony Locations
This is the most common question that engaged couples ask San Francisco city hall wedding photographers. There are many ceremony location options at San Francisco City Hall and all of them are fabulously magical. We have our preferences, but not all are available unless you are willing to pay an extra $1,000 for a private ceremony on the 4th floor North Gallery or Mayor’s Balcony. This is still quite a bargain when you think about all that you are receiving for that fee.
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San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photography Is Actually Very Cheap
How often do you make long-term investments? How often do you buy something that will stay in your family for generations? Probably, not too often. Of course, investments in Real Estate or higher education are critical, but wedding photos will also stay with you for years. They will be passed on to your descendants. Isn’t it worth spending money on? After all, your grandchildren will one day cherish these memories.
Zoe Larkin Photography Pricing
San Francisco City Hall ceremonies
Up to 2 hours of coverage.Extra hours $450 / hour.
Starting at $2,000
PRICES VALID FOR MONDAY – FRIDAY WEDDINGS, EXCLUDING HOLIDAYS. ALL PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES INCLUDE EDITED HIGH-RESOLUTION FILES.
SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL CEREMONIES
Starting at $1,500
Up to 2 hours of coverage.Extra hours $350 / hour.
With Associate Photographer
we offer optional add-ons
Choose your own adventure – à la carte pricing
ENGAGEMENT PHOTOGRAPHY, A SECOND PHOTOGRAPHER, WEEK-OF SNEAK PEEK, FINE-ART ALBUMS, SELF-SELECT PRINTS & WALL ART AS A LA CARTE ADD-ONS.
WE OFFER AS STANDARD FOR ALL COUPLES:
-Your own customized Photography Planning Document- recommendations from our extensive vendor network- At least 65 hand-edited high resolution images per hour of photography – Full gallery delivered within 6 weeks- online gallery for viewing, sharing, downloading & purchasing prints- Print release for all your images
Contact us about your City Hall ceremony!
We take on a limited number of weddings. we book strictly no more than 18 months out and no less than 3 weeks out. No exceptions.We’d love to respond to every inquiry, but during busy times we are only able to respond to inquiries that would be a good match. Please view full pricing info before inquiring.With love & gratitude, Zoe
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How Do You Get Legally Married In California
You need a marriage license to get legally married in California. Like many states, local county governments administer marriage license applications, according to planning experts at The Knot. California does not require a waiting period. As a result, you can get married immediately after obtaining your marriage license. This is different from many other states, such as Oregon and Washington. We’re also the best elopement photography team in Washington and Oregon, where there is a waiting period.
