Walk through for a street wedding...

When planning a wedding it is always important to have a "walk through" at the ceremony site to be sure that the engaged couple have conveyed their desires for the set up, decor and flow of their wedding ceremony. Equally important is that each member of the team executing their wedding know what is expected of them on the wedding day.

Pictured here are: Jenna, the bride; Christine one of my assistants; Jenna's mother; Julie Briggs Dunn and Alice Grisez, my two other assistants for the wedding day; and Justin's mother.

When a wedding ceremony will be in a crosswalk on a San Francisco street, it is even more important to be sure that each detail of the ceremony has been discussed thoroughly!

This week I met with my clients, Jenna and Justin, who will be married this summer in the crosswalk where Justin proposed to Jenna, at the very spot where he proposed. My team of assistants (each a professional wedding planner herself) the sound technician for the wedding, and both Jenna and Justin's mothers joined us for the walk through.


During this meeting we discussed where to place the barricades to block off traffic, how to disguise the generator for sound, location of the AV speakers, and of course, when the police would post the No Parking Signs!

This is the location for the wedding...there will be a platform just to the right of center (we have to leave an opening for emergency vehicles); the entire block will be closed off to parking and traffic for 7 hours while we set up for the wedding, bring all 200 guests up on shuttles, have the wedding, and then transport the guests to the reception at Julia Morgan Ballroom, while the wedding party and parents have a photo session at another SF location.

Jenna and her mother, with Justin and his mother, at the very spot where the their "children" will be married in just a few weeks!

Oh, and another important question, where do you have the rehearsal for a wedding in the middle of an intersection, the day before, when the block will not yet be closed off?


How about the terrace of the hotel where the bride and family members will be staying on the night before the wedding?

The groom and his mother, at the spot where we will have the wedding rehearsal.

My idea for the rehearsal location was embraced by Jenna, Justin and the family members, as well as the staff at the hotel, so the second part of our walk through was at the Hotel Vitale, where we viewed the rehearsal site, the terrace near Jenna's wedding suite.

We needed to be sure the 20+ members of the wedding party would fit, as well as having space to create an aisle with chairs for the family members to sit. We drew out where everyone would stand or sit on the terrace for the rehearsal, hoping that the pattern would transfer the next day to the Crosswalk at an intersection atop Potrero Hill.

Here I am with the groom, the mothers, and my team, discussing how best to use this lovely terrace for the wedding rehearsal the afternoon before the wedding.

We concluded that the Terrace at Hotel Vitale will work perfectly for the rehearsal, and that every detail we can think of so far about the street intersection wedding has been addressed.

Now, it is just a matter of determining how to duplicate on the wedding day the amazing weather we had for the walk through!

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes stories about my most unique professional challenge to date; to plan the first Mid-Street Wedding Ceremony ever issued a permit by the City of San Francisco!