A Three-Location City Hall Day in San Francisco

Under the Dome, Then Palace of Fine Arts Portraits

Family photos came first, right under the dome — including one of the whole group framed in the doorway of a marble elevator, a flower girl in a pale sage dress out front. San Francisco City Hall gives portraits a ceiling almost no room can match, and the marble and the arched light do most of the work on their own.

Then Yocelin and George drove across town to the Palace of Fine Arts, just the two of them and the photographer while the family made their own way to the reception. The Palace's ochre-and-terracotta rotunda and its long colonnade — Roman-style, monumental, edged by a reflecting lagoon and a green lawn — carried the day from marble and stone out into open air. They walked the colonnade hand in hand, small under the columns, the whole structure rising into a clear winter sky above them.

First Dance and Cake at the Vault Garden

Everyone gathered back downtown at the Vault Garden — a courtyard tucked between two high-rises under a glass canopy, strung with lights and warmed by tall patio heaters, curtains and greenery softening the edges of the city around it. Yocelin's sister Yarizma announced the couple in, and they went straight into their first dance, turning slowly under the glass while the towers rose overhead. Then a champagne toast: Yocelin with a Grenache Rosé, George with a Malbec, each holding their own.

The family settled at one long wood table — the kids included, wine and sparkling water going round, low candles and pale florals down the middle — and the cake from Sweet C's Bake Shoppe came out before the main course, cut together in the middle of the room. "We are so thankful for OLW," Yocelin wrote afterward. "I never stressed once. They partner with great people. I would highly recommend." It was a small, bright day, gathered back into one place after a morning that had crossed the whole city.