San Francisco City Hall Civil Ceremony | Wedding Photographer

San Francisco City Hall Civil Ceremony

Incredibly excited to share the first of my 2024 wedding season, photographing a classic San Francisco City Hall ceremony with the bride, groom, and their 16 closest family and friends. I especially love photographing small weddings and ceremonies at the San Francisco City Hall, so when Michelle and Hao reached out, I knew that this was going to be a fun one.

Logistics of getting married at the San Francisco City Hall

Michelle and Hao lined up both their wedding license appointment and wedding ceremony appoint just one hour apart. This can be a very efficient way to get through all the procedures for getting married in the state of California, at one of the most beautiful and classic venues that the city has to offer.

To make sure that we grabbed enough photos of the two of them, we met one hour before their licensing appointment and took advantage of the early morning emptiness at the grand staircase and fourth floor balcony. As you can tell, Michelle and Hao are absolutely smitten with each other and were a joy to be around. They switched between more romantic poses and fun, candid interactions seamlessly. I then dropped them off at the clerk office for their licensing appointment, took a quick Philz coffee break, then walked back to the City Hall building to meet them 15 minutes before their civil ceremony.

Alternatively, you can choose to complete your licensing appointment on a different day ahead of your ceremony date. If your schedule is flexible and you live near San Francisco, I highly recommend this option to make the day-of even smoother.

There is an official limit of 6 total attendees for a civil ceremony at San Francisco City Hall (and note that this number includes the photographer). However, the commissioner that they were assigned to was extremely generous and had absolutely no problem with all of Michelle and Hao’s 16 guests be a part of the ceremony. However, I do recommend noting this rule ahead of time and giving your guests a heads up that they may need to relocate somewhere nearby while the ceremony happens in the rotunda.

After the ceremony, we took family and group photos on the fourth floor balcony. We were so lucky to not have anyone else in the balcony at the time, so we took our time and took photos of a lot of different groups. As your photographer, I am very happy to coordinate all of the family group shots – brides side, grooms side, all together, just parents, just siblings you name it!

Adding Personal Details to your San Francisco City Hall Ceremony

Michelle and Hao also brought a red banner that is actually used in Taiwan for protest or promotional purposes but they re-used the concept for their wedding! Michelle tells me that the translation is something like pardon me, I have never done this before or rather, first time getting married in 30 years. What a unique, fun way of incorporating a cultural element into a civil ceremony!