A City Hall Wedding Styled from the Family Archive

A Closer Look

San Francisco City Hall hosts weddings nearly every day, and its grand staircase and colonnaded halls have framed countless couples. Angelina and Eric set their wedding apart with what they wore. Both of their looks carried pieces handed down through their families, and every one was styled with a modern, fashion-forward eye.

Eric wore his father's vintage suit, a dark double-breasted cut with peak lapels and the broad shoulders of an earlier decade. He paired it with a crisp white shirt, a pale tie and burgundy shoes, and a key-shaped brooch hung from the lapel on fine chains. Styled this way, the old tailoring felt fresh, and its generous proportions held their own against the building's towering columns.

Angelina worked the same idea in reverse. Her strapless Anthropologie gown was all clean line, and the heirlooms brought the past. Her grandmother's vintage necklace rested at her collarbone, and a watch that had also been her grandmother's showed through sheer opera gloves at her wrist. A filmy scarf wrapped her throat, and her veil had been sent from the Philippines. Fiona Tsang pulled her hair into a sleek low bun, which left the neckline, the jewelry and every layer of the veil to frame her face.

Her bouquet followed the same formula. Cream calla lilies and clusters of small white blooms made a classic bundle, while garlic stems bent into loose green curls and vines trailed well past her hands. The garlic was the unexpected ingredient, and it gave a traditional bouquet its edge.

The ceremony took place beneath one of City Hall's arched windows, where a circle of family and friends sat along the gallery to watch. The guest list was short enough for everyone to fit in a single frame, and for the group photo they crowded beside the carved stone urns with their arms thrown in the air.

They walked out through City Hall's gilded front doors waving, with the bouquet raised high. The building belongs to the whole city. For one day, dressed in their families' history, Angelina and Eric made it their own.