2022 Hazel Photo Weddings Year in Review

I’m going to “kick” this off by saying that 2022 kicked my butt. There was a metric ton of pent-up demand for live events this past year.

In 2022 I photographed:

37 weddings,

3 elopements,

A baby naming,

3 multi-day corporate conferences,

5 corporate parties,

3 family sessions,

6 engagement sessions,

and 150 headshots.

I’m incredibly grateful to every last client I worked with, and every person who referred me to clients. To be busy again after the pandemic, has made me feel alive and useful. This was the best year my business has seen to date. It was also the queerest year of weddings I have photographed!

Most of my photo work transpired in the greater San Francisco Bay Area… from Oakland to Orinda to Walnut Creek, from Napa to Calistoga to Mendocino from Sonoma to Healdsburg, from Gilroy to Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay, from The Financial District to Civic Center to the Presidio, from San Rafael to Mill Valley to Bodega Bay.

I did have the chance to travel to Lake Tahoe, Mendocino, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Jamaica to make photographs for clients as well.

I haven’t had time to share very much of the work I made this year, because I was so busy making it. In this coming January and February I am looking forward to reliving 2022 and updating my portfolio with some of the beauty I witnessed this past year.

A few wedding clients this year told me, “We don’t want any posed portraits. Just ‘documentary style’ photos of our wedding day.” I loved those opportunities to turn my entire focus to storytelling images. I felt seen, like my clients understood what I was up to, and wanted me to lean into that strength on their wedding day.

On the home front, our 2-year-old started preschool and brought us on vacation to Japan and Mexico. We bought an old house in Berkeley and have begun to fill it with art, and surround it with gardens.

Venues :
Carneros Resort
Stanly Ranch
San Francisco City Hall
University Club of San Francisco
Triple S Ranch
Ralston White Retreat
Sausalito Women’s Club
Jamaica Inn
City Club of San Francisco
Shakespeare Garden @ Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Club @ The Presidio
Log Cabin @ The Presidio
Beltane Ranch
Hacienda de las Flores
Cornerstone Sonoma
Oceano Resort
The Brazilian Room
The Legion of Honor
Leo’s Oysters
Zaytuna College
Rockefeller Lodge
Grace Cathedral
Ruth Bancroft Garden
The Gardens at Heather Farm
The Secret Gardens, Bodega Bay
Seven Branches Sonoma
Bell Valley Retreat
Eagle Ridge
Gar Woods
Thomas Fogarty Winery
Muir Beach Overlook
Pizzaiolo
Wayfare Tavern
Terra Gallery

Planners:
Boheme Events
Taylor Rae Weddings
Downey Street Weddings
Sachi & Maja
Emily Coyne Events
Limelight Productions
Showrunner Events
Riley Loves Lulu
Sabrina & Co.
Small Shindigs
Dreams on a Dime
MK Event Planning
2 Friends Events


Documentary Style Wedding Photography San Francisco City Hall – Kathryn & Brian

Kathryn & Brian were complete infectious delight from beginning to end. They made each other laugh in every room and hallway and trolley car, and tree shadow, and ocean breeze throughout their wedding day, from San Francisco City Hall, out to Land’s End for portraits, and back to Nopalito for the reception. I had known this was a possibility. We had met up beforehand to think through the wedding timeline over cocktails at the Garden Court in the Palace Hotel, and that had been all laughter from the get go.

Ahhh… San Francisco City Hall, after ten visits to photograph weddings back in those halcyon days of 2019, you strike me an old friend. We hear you are open for weddings again all the way out here in 2021! A sure sign the pandemic is slowing down here in San Francisco.

San Francisco City Hall is a functional space from where the city is governed, but it also tends to feel a bit of a ruin in its age and grandness. Every San Francisco City Hall Wedding is also an exploration of generous halls, and gorgeous light, the sound of oxfords echoing against the marble floors, the coolness of the stone as one leans, shoulder meets tulle meets stone wall. In every corner a brass bust of a mayor of yore . But it is far from ruin alone. As I remember, there was a Zumba class dancing their way to fitness when I arrived for Kathryn & Brian’s wedding.

After the nuptials in the rotunda, we stepped outside into the sun, where more of Kathryn and Brian’s beloveds had gathered for a Hornblower trolley tour of the city. We passed another wedding at the Haas-Lilienthal House which sparked cheering and shouts from trolley to house, and house to trolley. Out at Land’s End we were greeted with lovely light for wedding portraits. As the day unfolded, more and more of Kathryn & Brian’s closest people arrived, first for the trolley tour, and then at Nopalito later in the evening. It total it was a glorious day from start to finish with very little fuss.


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