A Fourth Floor Gallery City Hall Wedding, Restarted

Getting Ready Before City Hall

The morning ran slow — a small group, a slow start, the unhurried pace that comes from a plan they'd already made their peace with. The hair and makeup team worked through Danielle's look while the day came together around her. Her dress was a beaded, softly sparkling ballgown with a full tulle skirt and a long train, worn with a lace-edged cathedral veil that ran well past the hem. Andre got into a black suit with a black bow tie and a single white bloom at the lapel.

They'd decided to do a first look before the ceremony, so once they were both dressed they met in one of City Hall's long marble corridors — pale stone columns on both sides, the black-and-white floor stretching out, the hanging lamps glowing overhead. Danielle came around holding her bouquet, white and lavender, roses and soft purple blooms bunched loose in her hands, and turned to find Andre waiting a few feet away. For a minute the whole grand hall held no one but the two of them.

The Fourth-Floor North Gallery

The ceremony was up in the North Gallery on the fourth floor — the corner of San Francisco City Hall that photographers ask for by name. Tall arched windows on three sides pull in more daylight than anywhere else in the building, and it fell across the marble, the great carved-stone urns on their pedestals, and the ornate plasterwork curving up toward the dome. Their officiant, a woman in black, stood at the balustrade. Beatriz Orozco led the vows while a string ensemble played and the nineteen guests sat close in gold chairs, the women in black, the whole group near enough to be right in it.