San Francisco Pop Up Wedding
An Intimate Ranch Wedding in Monterey, California
You’re going to LOVE getting married at San Francisco City Hall. There are a lot of wedding venues and city halls across the country, but none compare to this one. When I first started photographing weddings here ten years ago, I walked into this giant, beautiful building and felt a little lost, so I imagine you must feel the same way. Do not worry; I will share a decade’s worth of tips with you and walk you through this experience like it’s the best dream you’ve ever had. My goal is for you to feel completely confident and supported on your wedding day and to have a photography portfolio that transports you right back to the joy of your wedding day for many years to come.
How to get married at SF City Hall.
Start by getting a separate wedding license and wedding ceremony appointment. You can book your wedding photography with us before the 90-day window opens to book your license and ceremony appointment. (And if it makes you too nervous, our all-inclusive packages let you book with our officiant right now, so you can check it off your list.) Let’s review how to ensure you get the wedding date and time you desire.
Booking your California marriage license and civil ceremony at SF City Hall.
Marriage licenses are $110, and appointments are open every half hour between 8:15 and 3:30 pm in the County Clerk’s office on the first floor in room 168. You must both be present with one valid form of ID, including your driver’s license or passport. You can get married in California if you are from out of the country or state. It’s pretty easy in San Francisco compared to some other cities. If either of you have been divorced in the last six months, you’ll need a copy of your divorce decree. You must have completed either the public or confidential marriage license application.
If you do both on the same day, SF Civil Ceremony appointments should be made at least an hour after your marriage license appointment. You must sign up for two appointments, so be aware that one does not automatically sign you up for the other. Book your SF City Hall civil ceremony between 9 am and 3:30pm Monday through Friday. You must show your photo ID again and complete your marriage license. The fee for a civil ceremony is $90. You will have a civil ceremony check-in 15 minutes before your scheduled time. Even though you have a ceremony booked at a specific time, please know that they rarely happen precisely on time. Three couples will be booked for every half-hour time slot, and each ceremony is 5-10 minutes, depending on which marriage commissioner performs your ceremony. Some are short and sweet. Others enjoy engaging you and your guests a bit more. Wait time after the ceremony check-in varies from 5-30 minutes, so don’t panic if this happens. You may have two witnesses but must only have one by law. Confidential licenses do not require witnesses. My team and I are always thrilled to be your witness. It’s like saying YES to love every single time! Suppose you have a super popular date, like the Friday before a holiday weekend, or a day where all the numbers are similar, like 02/22/22, for example, and are nervous that your date will sell out. In that case, my trick is to stay up till just after midnight the night before the 90-day window and book your date and time as soon as the city hall calendar opens it. Never fails!
A California marriage license from another City Hall
You can go to any city hall in California and get your marriage license, which you can bring with you to hand to your officiant at SF City Hall on your wedding day. They sign it and return it to the city hall from which it was obtained.
If you do both on the same day, SF Civil Ceremony appointments should be made at least an hour after your marriage license appointment. You must sign up for two appointments, so be aware that one does not automatically sign you up for the other. Book your SF City Hall civil ceremony between 9 am and 3:30pm Monday through Friday. You must show your photo ID again and complete your marriage license. The fee for a civil ceremony is $90. You will have a civil ceremony check-in 15 minutes before your scheduled time. Even though you have a ceremony booked at a specific time, please know that they rarely happen precisely on time. Three couples will be booked for every half-hour time slot, and each ceremony is 5-10 minutes, depending on which marriage commissioner performs your ceremony. Some are short and sweet. Others enjoy engaging you and your guests a bit more. Wait time after the ceremony check-in varies from 5-30 minutes, so don’t panic if this happens. You may have two witnesses but must only have one by law. Confidential licenses do not need witnesses. My team and I are always thrilled to be your witness. It’s like saying YES to love every single time! Suppose you have a super popular date, like the Friday before a holiday weekend, or a day where all the numbers are similar, like 02/22/22, for example, and are nervous that your date will sell out. In that case, my trick is to stay up till just after midnight the night before the 90-day window and book your date and time as soon as the city hall calendar opens it. Never fails!
Where are the civil ceremonies performed?
Most civil ceremony weddings occur in the Rotunda at the top of the grand staircase. This is a beautifully unique circular room, surrounded by open arches and columns for a view of the central atrium. San Francisco City Hall’s website states that up to six guests can accompany you. I’ve known certain deputy marriage commissioners to be flexible on this point. If you have more than six guests for a civil ceremony, your marriage commissioner could also hold your ceremony in the “private room”…..you do not want this. Ask me how to avoid this.
When will you not be able to get married in Rotunda?
In the very rare event that there is a private event booked there. If your wedding is booked for early morning, you can avoid this problem. I always suggest meeting me as early as 8:30 or 9am if you can manage because that’s the best way to have the grand staircase to yourself. Tuesday afternoons when the Board of Supervisors meets. They request quiet for their meetings, and some weddings have been very…happy! (And by this I mean loud, but who can blame them, we’re celebrating!)The Mayor’s inauguration every four years or if there is a prominent political event that requires security. After Thanksgiving, they set up the incredibly beautiful Christmas tree for several days. Your wedding will be held nearby, usually on the Mayor’s Balcony or the lovely fourth floor under the half-dome windows. These are fantastic alternatives, and both spots can be rented by the hour if you want a larger or more private wedding. I will cover that next. During the Christmas season, large corporations and charities often have holiday parties. During the opening celebrations for the San Francisco Opera, Ballet, and Symphony, our City Hall hosts the gala dinner and ball. These days, many buildings are being taken over by companies staging events, so a morning wedding is a must. By noon, the rotunda and grand staircase will be closed to us. If you are concerned, ask us to check once you have chosen your wedding date. You may want to change the date, or move it to earlier in the day.
Booking a one-hour private wedding at city hall.
If you’ve fallen in love with SF City Hall but also want a fairytale wedding where you can walk down an actual aisle and have privacy from other guests and workers in the building, then you’ll want to look into renting the Mayor’s Balcony on the second floor, or the fourth floor North or South Galleries.
City Hall Mayor’s Balcony Weddings.
This space is on the second floor and dramatically overlooks the grand staircase and all four floors of the open marble and sandstone atrium in the center of the building. The view is a show stopper, and the price is a steal. For $1000 on weekdays between 9am and 4pm you can rent the space for an hour. It holds one hundred guests, and you can rent seating for up to forty people. Folding chairs are $3.50 each, and fancier gold Chiavari chairs are $7.50 through the events department. The rest of your guests can stand on the floor with three staircases leading down to it. Music adds a beautiful layer to your wedding experience, and acoustic music is allowed. There is a vendor list of approved musicians that I can send you. They include harp, cello, violin, and acoustic guitar artists. Food and beverages are not currently allowed, but I also have a list of fantastic restaurants within walking distance for a reception afterward.
City Hall Fourth Floor North and South Galleries
These spaces are on the fourth and highest floors of the building. When you rent either of these spaces, the events department will post very cute signs with your wedding party’s names so your family and friends know where to find you. It also lets other building guests know that they may not enter your space. One runs the length of the entire North side of the fourth floor, and the other runs the South as a whole length. Interestingly, they will not rent out both during the same hour, so you never have to compete with anyone else’s acoustic music during your ceremony hour. The pricing is the same as the mayor’s balcony, $1000 per hour, chair rental is $3.50 for folding chairs and $7.00 for Chiavari chairs. This larger space can accommodate chair rental for up to one hundred guests. While you don’t get a view downstairs, you do get total privacy from the general public viewing your ceremony, and you’ll find your selves ensconced directly beneath the jaw-dropping dome of the building (it’s even more significant than the Capitol building in Washington D.C.) and surrounded by towering half circle windows. While the Mayor’s Balcony makes you feel connected to all the action in the building, the North and South Galleries make you feel like you’re in your world, in a giant white marble cocoon. If you have a Chuppah, they are allowed on this floor and the second floor on the mayor’s balcony as long as they are hand-held. What else do we need to do for the private floor rentals? You’ll need to book your officiant. We have packages that include an officiant. If you wish to have a friend or family member get ordained, that’s fine, too.
How do I get to San Francisco City Hall, and where do we park?
For most couples staying overnight before their wedding, it’s easiest to take a cab or hired car to the wedding. You hop out and head through the famous gold-lettered doors on Polk Street (Now, this section right in front of City Hall has been renamed 1 Dr.Carlton B Goodlett Place, so tell your driver if he is confused, but it’s still part of Polk Street) If you and your guests are driving your cars, just set your GPS to 355 McAllister St. There’s a small P for parking sign, but not much else to see, there’s just a ramp that goes down to the convenient underground parking lot. Elevators take you back to street level and let you out directly across the street from the building. There is street-metered parking, and you can keep your vehicle there for four-hour blocks.
How do I find quality vendors for hair, makeup, and flowers and hire the officiate for my private ceremony?
Whatever you need, please ask, and I’ll be happy to steer you in the right direction. I know many of you don’t live near San Francisco and are possibly flying in from overseas, and hiring everyone for your event can be impossible. That’s why I created our all-inclusive options a few years ago; they’ve been our most popular packages. I list great places for you and your guests to have lunch, dinner, or a formal reception. Just ask, and also check my blog for related articles.
Can we pick a pretty spot in the building and get married with our officiant?
Yes, if you choose one of our all-inclusive packages, we have several spots that work out beautifully and won’t allow others to walk through your ceremony or end up in your photography. You may also choose to get married outside across the street in the small park next to the War Memorial building. It’s another hidden gem. This excellent elopement option gives you more photography time, as we won’t be waiting for the civil ceremony check-in to complete.
Why choose San Francisco City Hall as your wedding venue?
This majestic building is now in the National Register of Historic Places and takes up two entire city blocks. There is no shortage of jaw-dropping locations for wedding photography inside and outside the building at five hundred thousand square feet of Beaux-Arts architecture. Made of tons of marble and sandstone, most of this stone came from various states around the U.S.: Pennsylvania, Vermont, Alabama, and Colorado. Celebrities have been coming here to get married for decades. Most people have heard that Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio married here in 1954, and that’s true. Still, most people don’t know that famous artist Frieda Khalo (The subject of the 2002 movie starring Selma Hayek) and muralist Diego Rivera were married to each other for the *second* time here in 1940, and TV’s Rosie O’Donnell and Kelli Carpenter rented the whole building and had their nuptials here is 2004. There’s also a huge list of movies shot here, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and A View to a Kill, in the James Bond franchise. What’s interesting is that this building resonates with so many different people. It is a fantastic venue for many wedding styles, from a classic 1920s Great Gatsby wedding to modern offbeat bride events, complete with brightly hued Converse high tops to go with your wedding dress or suit. This is a space that allows you to make it your own. As large as it is, it still conveys intimacy. All ages, ethnicities, and orientations are enthusiastically welcomed here. I could write a whole article on the buildings LGBT history, but suffice it to say, same-sex weddings have always been, and will always be a piece of this puzzle. My take on the vibe inside is spiritual and theatrical. There’s a sense of reverence and excitement, like just before the curtain goes up on a Broadway production.
Can we take more wedding pictures around town?
We’d love to take you! Extend your wedding day by choosing a photography package with more time. I’ve lived in San Francisco my whole adult life, and I know the most beautiful spots for any outdoor scenery you could crave.. If you’d like to stick with a 1915 feel to match city hall, we’ll head to the Palace Of Fine Arts or the Legion of Honor Museum. If you’d like some beaches with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, then East Beach at Crissy Field, Fort Marshall, or Baker Beach are excellent choices. Have you always wanted to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and look back at the city? Then, the Marin Headlands photo session is for you. Do you love the forest?
We could continue to Muir Woods or Lovers Lane, a mini forest if you want to stay in the city. If we head to Golden Gate Park (Not the same place as the bridge), we can take photos by a lake with a waterfall in the middle and hit the Golden Gate Park Botanical Garden, too. Cable Cars? Lombard Street? Cityscapes? We even have photo tours with our exclusive partners, a vintage VW bus company, to take you to more locations where we could go by car. It is our greatest hope that family members in years to come will say your wedding pictures are their most cherished family heirloom, the love story of the two of you.
Can we have our pets at the wedding?
We are always thrilled to have this question posed to us. YES! We’d encourage you to make your fur kid part of the wedding day and can offer helpful tips to make their day and yours as stress-free and easy as possible. We have planned and photographed many weddings with dogs, cats, and horses in attendance. Safety is our number one priority for your furry family member.
Should I buy a more casual wedding dress?
Only if you want to! Many couples say, “It’s only a City Hall Wedding,” until they experience their wedding day. This is much more than your average courthouse wedding. The building and the rest of the city genuinely lend themselves to a formal wedding dress. But if that’s not your style, jumpsuits, shorter skirts, and more casual styles are delicate, too. I’m an expert at setting long wedding trains and veils, and I enjoy doing it, so if you want to go big, I’m all in. I’ve written several other blogs on this subject, so look around the page for those. Will I own the rights to my photography?
How will I get my edited images?
Sneak peeks will be delivered within 48-72 hours. I will send you a link to your private online gallery. You can share the page with friends and family very easily. You will be able to download your full high-resolution gallery to your own computer in several different resolutions and editing styles. You can order prints, albums, and keepsakes directly from this page.
