ceremony at university club of sf wedding

How to Get Married at the University Club of San Francisco

How to Plan and Capture a Stunning University Club of San Francisco Wedding: An Extended Guide

Planning a wedding at the University Club of San Francisco is an opportunity to create an event that’s as rich in history and culture as it is in beauty. This enhanced guide aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the University Club of San Francisco as a wedding venue, highlighting not just its beauty but also the practical steps to ensure your wedding day is as picturesque and memorable as possible.

Step 1: Dive into the Venue’s Rich History

The University Club’s Heritage: Originally a meeting place for alumni from prestigious universities, the University Club has become a celebrated spot for social and intellectual gatherings. The building’s Italianate architecture, designed by Walter Bliss & William Faville and completed in 1909, echoes the grandeur of the Gilded Age. Its location on Nob Hill offers sweeping views, making it a prized landmark in San Francisco.

Step 2: Plan Your Wedding Day

Starting the Day: Choose between getting ready at the Club itself or at nearby luxury hotels like the Fairmont, Stanford, or Mark Hopkins. Consider the ambiance and photo opportunities each location offers to start your day perfectly.

Step 3: Capture the First Look and Pre-Ceremony Moments

Iconic Photo Opportunities: Utilize the University Club’s staircase and balcony for breathtaking first look photos. Nearby hotels like the Mark Hopkins provide unique backdrops, such as the Top of the Mark’s panoramic views or the Fairmont’s pristine gardens.

Cityscape Portraits: Embrace the urban charm of San Francisco for your portraits. Capture moments on the street trolley, with the Bay Bridge or the Trans America building in the background, or near the majestic Grace Cathedral. Some of my favorite moments are simply the in-between moments when we are moving from spot A to B. Something about hearing a chorus of “Congratulations!” from strangers as you move throughout the city is really an exciting and energizing way to kick off the wedding day.

Step 4: The Library Session

A Literary Backdrop: The University Club’s library, with its rare books collection, offers a unique and intellectual setting for photography. The shelves of historic volumes and the quiet ambiance of the library add a touch of elegance and sophistication to your wedding photos.

Step 5: The Ceremony

A Fourth Floor Affair: The fourth-floor space, with its elegant chandeliers and floral decorations, provides a romantic setting for your vows.

Step 6: Enjoying the Cocktail Hour and Reception

Exploring the Club: Transition to the cocktail hour on the fourth floor’s balcony, followed by dinner on the third floor. Cocktail hour can flow into the pool room as well, where I’ve seen the pool table transformed into a dining table, complete with a champagne tower. These locations offer an intimate speakeasy vibe and stunning city views, perfect for memorable photos.

The Vibe: Picture high ceilings, big windows, walls hung salon style with taxidermy, old prints of San Francisco, and Audubon imagery. The interior is fairly dark with dark leather and dark green stained glass windows representing different universities, but the big picture windows bring the city life and light in both during the day and night.

Step 7: Mastering the Venue for Photography

Photography Challenges: Be prepared to work with the mixed lighting of the Club. Understanding how to use different lighting techniques is key to capturing the mood and ambiance of the venue. The interior light fixtures are often on during weddings and provide a warm ambience to the space.

Step 8: Evening Celebrations

Dinner and Dancing: The spacious layout of the University Club facilitates smooth transitions between different parts of the event, from dinner to dancing, allowing for a seamless photographic narrative. Throughout the night we capture numerous spaces as they come alive with different wedding-goers moving through them.

Step 9: Coordinating Your Day

The Role of the Coordinator: Rely on the expertise of Yvonne, the in-house coordinator, to streamline your wedding day flow, ensuring a stress-free experience.

Final Recommendations

Why Choose the University Club: With its blend of historical charm, architectural beauty, and modern urban energy, the University Club of San Francisco stands out as an ideal wedding venue. The variety of backdrops, from the rare books in the library to the panoramic city views, ensures a wedding day filled with unique and stunning photographs.

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Bay Area Documentary Wedding Photographer Hazelphoto

Moments that matter – a year in weddings

Here we have a year of weddings as seen through “moments.”

2018 brought a lovely diversity of venues throughout the Bay Area and beyond, including the Sierra Mountains, Big-Sur, The Boston T and the Boston Public Library, Art Museums, Tiny Chapels and Massive Urban High Schools, Small High Schools and Redwood Theaters, a Mansion that once belonged to a general…

I feel overwhelming gratefulness for all the joy and ritual that I experienced through a camera lens this past year.

But why “moments”? Because they draw us in through their storytelling power. They make us feel what exists on either side of them. They don’t just show a gorgeous dress. They show a woman in a gorgeous dress flushed with joy as she dances with her father. Her gesture shows the freedom and the fun she has shared with him. They don’t just show a marriage license sitting upon a table. They show a group hug between a bride, a groom, her sister, his brother, and the closest of friends, the marriage license gripped between the groom’s fingers.

A photograph is time frozen. Sure, etymologically speaking, it is a light-drawing…but maybe we should have called it a nontempograph… because it’s conceptual implications are: it takes something that exists in the spatiotemporal world, and strips it of time, leaving it to a solely spatial existence. It is of time and yet out of time. A spatial representation of time at a standstill.

And in it’s spatial existence, it can only hint at temporality. It is those photographs that gesture grandly toward temporality that move me most.

Here’s to a 2019 of making wedding photographs that gesture grandly toward temporality.

Industrial Chic Wedding Bok Building

Industrial Chic Wedding Bok Building – Eliza & Dirk

Eliza & Dirk had the distinct pleasure of walking from their home in their South Philadelphia neighborhood to their wedding venue, The Bok Building. Part of the vision for the day, as far as photography, was a walk through the neighborhood with bridal portraits in front of Eliza & Dirk’s favorite murals. We got lucky, and happened upon an Italian street festival, replete with red white and green pendants strung across the street. Philadelphia is a city of hidden magic on tiny alleys, and we found that magic again and again as the day unfolded.

Eliza is an urban planner, Dirk a geographer, so it was apt that the backdrop for their wedding was a view of the city grid of Philadelphia from above. The florals were fantastic. I love the arrangement at the altar with the city peeking through beyond. Post-industrial splendour exploding with flowers!

Sometimes as I photograph a wedding I pick up on a subtle dynamic I didn’t see coming. On their wedding day, from getting ready, through the ceremony, into toasts, I was struck by what an exceptionally strong chosen family Eliza & Dirk have cultivated, and now cherish.

Let’s also not forget that there was an astronaut in attendance, and he made every photo he graced with his presence ten times better.

I could write volumes, but these photos!! I won’t keep them from you any longer.

Photography : Hazelphoto

Wedding planner : Nicole Hutnyk / Rabbit Rabbit Crew

Wedding attire : Sarah Seven, Taylor Stitch

Florist : Vault & Vine

Hair : Kerri Fawley/Herringbone Salon

Makeup : JKo Beauty

Catering : Power Events Catering & Weckerly’s Ice Cream

Rings : Bario Neal

Invitations : Egg Press

Arnold Arboretum Engagement Photos hazelphoto weddings

Arnold Arboretum Engagement Photos – Meaghan & Carleton

Few places in Boston are quite so lovely for engagement photos as Arnold Arboretum. We found some glorious light on this lovely, temperate, September day.

Fast forward to their wedding at the Thompson Inn in New Hampsire.

Classic Church and Topsail Tent Wedding – Jocelyn and Tom

The story of how it came to be that I photographed Jocelyn and Tom’s wedding is on the complicated side of things. Jocelyn reached out to see if I was available to photograph her wedding on the Sunday of Memorial Day. She is an incredible storyteller, and went into detail in her initial query about the history of her grandma and grandpa’s house where the reception would be held. The house actually had it’s 300th birthday this year. There was a fabled apple tree, apple pies, peach jam, and a grapevine Robert Frost had written a poem about. Jocelyn and Tom were high school sweethearts at Exeter where they both rowed on the crew team. Very sad for me! I was booked Sunday, but I was available Saturday, so I cheekily suggested they change the date of the wedding to Saturday.

By mere chance, or some celestial tinkering, Jocelyn and Tom changed their wedding date to Saturday, and booked me as their photographer! I anticipated the wedding with excitement all year long, and when it finally came to pass, it did not disappoint.

The wedding was a classic. It started in the Exeter church, and ended with joyous dancing under a topsail tent. The thing that struck me most about their wedding was how right it felt. They were surrounded by family and friends who could see with great clarity how happy Jocelyn and Tom made each other and what an incredible match the two made. Each, in their own right, is a force to be reckoned with, but together, they are indomitable. Woe to anyone who should impede their path. They had their first look on a worn marble staircase at Phillips Exeter Academy where they had first met and forged their connection. I made couples portraits of the two down at the Exeter Boathouse, the site of their first date! I could go on and on about the wonders of their wedding… Thank you again for being so lovely to work with, Jocelyn and Tom.

Many many thanks to the talented Cara Brostrom for coming on as a 2nd photographer.

Sitting Bride Groom Portrait San Francisco Wedding Photographer

Bride’s Dress: Amsale from The White Gown

Groom’s suit: Custom made by the Black Lapel

Florist: Cymbidium Floral

DJ and/or band: DJ Jodi Entertainment

Catering: Stone Oven Catering and Las Olas

Invitations: Crane & Co

San Francisco Professional Headshots

The job market is hyper competitive in San Francisco. Professional headshots can give an engineer, a UX designer, an entrepreneur, a consultant, a writer, or even a professional freeloader, the competitive edge.

What does it mean to make a professional headshot?

Is there something really so different from using an iphone photo?

The answer is absolutely yes!

In our digital age of Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, and Instagram feeds, we are overwhelmed with an unending stream of information. The easiest way to contact a potential employer or client is by email, but email is extraordinarily impersonal, and the inboxes of professionals are constantly overflowing with emails from other potential job candidates. In an email there is no voice, no face, no body language. Have you ever noticed how very easy it is not to respond to an email? A well executed professional headshot as a profile photo attached to an email or on LinkedIn or Twitter can make the person on the other side of the message feel like they know and understand you when they have never met you. A poorly executed headshot can make that person write you off immediately before they read anything it is that you have to say. You look sloppy, like you couldn’t be asked.

At Hazel Photo we make professional headshots with precise natural light techniques, and with naturalistic flash, both indoors and outdoors. We pay attention to the details. We find the most flattering angles. We coach our clients into natural inviting expressions, even when they are a bit camera shy. We use light modifiers and reflectors to bring appealing dimensionality to the faces of our subjects. Photographs without professional lighting can end up feeling impersonal. Our use of light, makes for a more dynamic and engaging portrait that will help you to connect to people you have never met, and open up doors that didn’t seem possible to open previously.

For more examples checkout https://paulgargagliano.com

boss lady San Francisco Professional Headshots - Hazel Photo