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Cynthia and Adam's classic city hall micro wedding took place on the grand staircase at San Francisco City Hall in September 2024, under the great domed rotunda. Getting ready came first, then the marble stairs, a live musician, and a walk out into the city around them.
They said their vows on the landing where the staircase turns, then carried the celebration a few blocks on for cake and a toast with their closest people, a small, warm day that fit two people and the building they chose for it.
Janette officiated the ceremony on the grand staircase inside San Francisco City Hall, on the landing where the marble steps turn and rise toward the second floor. A live musician played as Cynthia and Adam faced each other and read their vows beneath the rotunda, the dome carrying the sound of the room up and around them.
They exchanged rings there on the stairs, the light coming through the windows above, and were married in the middle of the building's steady daytime hum. Couples do this ceremony every day at City Hall, and every one of them gets the whole staircase. Ilana Thomas played during the vows, and the music filled the marble space the way it does in a room built to carry sound.
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“Vows on the marble landing, a live musician playing, the great dome overhead.”
Portraits followed right there in the building. San Francisco City Hall was designed by Arthur Brown Jr. in the Beaux-Arts style, and its dome rises 307 feet, a full 42 feet taller than the dome of the U.S. Capitol, with the grand staircase set directly beneath it. Cynthia and Adam moved through the balconies, the arches, and the marble stairs for photographs, then stepped outside for a few frames on the city streets around the building. The rotunda and the staircase give a City Hall wedding portrait session a scale that doesn't require leaving the building to feel complete.
From City Hall the day carried on nearby for the reception. Vault Garden SF, a short distance from the building, private and the right size for a close group after an urban city hall ceremony. Cynthia and Adam cut the cake from Sweet C's Cakeshoppe and raised a toast with the people who had come.
A small, warm end to a classic city hall micro wedding, the two of them, the cake, and the city they had just gotten married in.
Cynthia put it simply afterward: everything went just as it should, and if she could relive the day every day, she would.
“I would just like to thank our little wedding for making my special day so perfect. Everything went just as it should and if I can relive the day everyday I would! Thank you so much!”