Vivian Chen Photography

We had heard from several sources that selecting your wedding photographer was the most important decision and investment that you will make for your wedding. The moment we met Viv we knew she was the one. We had a warm and personal meeting in her stylist apartment and we loved the rich and candid way she captures the feelings of the day. Her customer service is impeccable and she knows exactly what she is doing on the day-​of. We had a large unruly family and bridal party and Viv flawlessly executed the group shots so quickly and efficiently that no one got antsy. The pictures were so gorgeous and Viv sends them to you in the cutest way (won’t say more or I’ll spoil it!) I highly recommend her for the most stunning wedding photography you will ever see.

Just received the photos from our shoot with our 6 month old daughter this weekend to send out with our annual holiday cards. WOW! She really captured the personality of our daughter as she interacted with my partner and me. The photos are stunningly beautiful and we could not be happier with her work! She was great to work with and got the photos edited in just a couple of days. We will definitely be calling on her for future shoots! Thanks, Viv!

Hiring Vivian was easily one of the best decisions we made in planning our wedding. Her photos are gorgeous: crisp, clean, and vibrant. She has a particular passion for the outdoors, and did a beautiful job with our ceremony in the redwoods. We’re very, very happy with our photos — we really couldn’t imagine anything better. Perhaps just as important was how easy it was to work with Vivian. She is extremely responsive, organized, and kind. In the midst of many moving parts, it was fantastic to work with such a competent person. We really can’t recommend her highly enough!

We found Vivian Chen through the blog, A Practical Wedding, and she was the first vendor we booked. We knew we wanted to get married at SF City hall and her portfolio was stunning. And at the end of the day, it didn’t do her work justice! She was incredible to work with, so professional, made us comfortable and the photos we got are STUNNING! This is truly an investment in art. Everyone who has seen the photos as been in awe at how gorgeous they all are. Vivian didn’t just get the portraits but the small moments that made the day so special. She felt like a guest at the wedding, made sure she understood what we wanted, and went above and beyond to make it happen. Thank you Vivian for a lifetime of memories!

When we look through our wedding pictures, we know that Vivian was one of the very best choices we made in the whole wedding planning process. She was absolutely wonderful to work with, completely professional and responsive, and just went above and beyond in so many ways with her service and product. We found Vivian via a featured wedding in Refinery 29, loved her «About Me» video, enjoyed meeting her at her studio, and most of all were blown away by her past work at SF City Hall. She is so talented, giving with wedding tips, thoughtful, considerate to family, and really helped our day go smoothly. We’ll treasure our photos forever and are so thankful we got to work with Vivian!

I found Vivian through the website
and chose her to do our fairly large wedding in April 2015. She did an amazing job and we have received so many compliments on the photos! We love the beautiful, clean engagement photos and wedding photos. And I especially love the candid photos of our guests, which somehow manage to capture their personalities in addition to making them look gorgeous.
A true professional from beginning to end, she comes thoroughly prepared and helps you to think through the photography portions of the day, too. She also has so many little touches that show how much she cares and values her work. To name just one, Vivian sent us a handful of the best photos a few days after the wedding — the perfect thing for sharing with curious colleagues or friends who weren’t able to be a part of the big day.
I highly recommend using Vivian!

My other half found Vivian through her featured images on a BuzzFeed article about city hall weddings. We saw her pictures and immediately said that we wanted her to capture our special day at San Francisco City Hall. From day one, Vivian’s timely emails were kind, energetic, and courteous. While we knew she took her work seriously and enjoyed taking pictures based on other reviews listed below, we also knew quite quickly that we picked a photographer who was going to have as much fun and excitement as we were heading to SF City Hall.
Vivian’s pictures are incredible; we constantly receive compliments about how stellar, breathtaking, and just utterly priceless our pictures look from friends and family. My other half and I were not big into looking into each other’s eyes or any major PDA. Vivian sensed this immediately and captured snapshots of us playing around with one another, making silly faces at each other (it’s what we do), and utilizing the grandeur of SF City Hall. She knew what to do and acted immediately.
We received our images in a timely fashion; Vivian even sent several preview images within hours of the ceremony. Her written communications and in-​person demeanor are very professional, courteous, and friendly, as evidenced by the hug we received upon meeting. Apart from capturing beautiful images of the two of us, Vivian generously volunteered to be our witness — a gesture we greatly appreciated.
If we had to do this all over again, we wouldn’t change a single thing — including our selection of our wonderful photographer.

We cannot speak more highly about Vivian and her City Hall photography services. From the beginning, Vivian was the consummate professional. She was really great at following up with me if I had any questions and made herself available to us according to our schedule. She helped my husband and I organize our day so that we could really get all the pictures that we wanted to capture.
The day of, she worked really well with our videographer. I could not have gotten through the day without her help as my husband and I felt quite hectic, and she really helped us organize our guests and let them know where to go and when. This was such a huge relief to me and I really felt that I could relax and enjoy the day. She even had emergency bobby pins!
She got the teaser photos out to us super fast! In fact, we got lovely sneak-​peek pictures the day of! Her turnaround is lightening fast. The pictures were absolutely gorgeous and everything we could have hoped for. As others have said, the pictures turned out so wonderful that we will have trouble choosing which ones to include in our album and frame. She really captured all the lovely moments and with such elegance that there is no way you could not love the pictures that she takes. If you are hesitating, don’t, hire Vivian for your wedding!

This is a bit overdue but here goes…
Vivian is incredibly professional and put us at ease in front of the camera. She had the perfect balance of posed shots and candids on the day of our wedding.
Viv’s response time is incredible. We had a sneak peak at our wedding photos within a few days and all of our pictures were in our hands before her agreed upon date.
We enjoyed working with Viv (and Emily, the second shooter) and would happily choose to do so again.

Long overdue review!
One of our top priorities for our wedding is photography. We wanted to hire someone local and did a lot of research on Bay Area photographers to find someone whose work matched our style. We wanted bright, clean, and crisp photos. We are not a fan of dark, dramatic wedding photos that look like something out of Twilight. My fiancé, now-​husband and I sat down together in front of the computer and poured through the online portfolios of more than a dozen Bay Area photographers including Vivian’s. We both immediately fell in love with her work.
We had two engagement shoot sessions. For Part I of our engagement session, we took pictures with our cats. Bonus point: She is a cat lady herself and did not think that I was crazy for wanting to take portraits with my «kids.» My cats were not very cooperative (I should have known this!), but Vivian still managed to capture some great shots of them!
For Part II, we did our engagement shoots at UC Davis where my husband and I met.
Vivian was right on time and ready to go. Even though Vivian had planned a trip with her husband that day, she still stayed a little longer in order for us to get all the pictures that we wanted. You can tell that she is genuinely excited about her work and is willing to go the extra mile for her clients. Our engagement pictures arrived earlier than promised and we were amazed at how many great pictures she took.
For the big day, Vivian arrived right on time at the hotel. She also helped my mom pin her flower to her dress since I couldn’t figure out how to do it. We received our wedding photos earlier than promised and again, GORGEOUS PHOTOS!
Vivian is very organized, calm, and talented. Like other Unilocalers, we hope to use her services again in the future and do bellies, babies, and kids photos.

Booked Viv for our wedding in October 2014. Knowing that we’d have these photos for the rest of our lives, we took the decision on the photographer very seriously and could not have been happier. Viv is talented, professional, and prompt in answering all inquiries. The photos are perfect — I still don’t how she captured so many moments from our wedding. Would recommend her to anyone — and someday when we have kids, hopefully we’ll be able to use her services again!

I want to wholeheartedly recommend Vivian Chen to brides looking for a caring and conscientious photographer who will artistically and respectfully capture everything beautiful on their wedding day.
Vivian is a true artist with a romantic heart. She stays on top of photography trends and works hard to gather details and the types of shots that each customer is looking for.
If you’re looking for someone who strives to capture YOUR vision, and who knows how to tell «the story» of your day, Vivian is your gal!

I began my reviews of Viv on other sites with this same statement, but it’s true and I can’t say it enough: Viv was one of the best decisions we made together as a couple in regards to our wedding! Save yourself all the stress of deciding between this photographer and that, and just book her now! You will be completely satisfied. Here’s why…
From the very beginning, Viv was quick to respond to all of my e-​mails and questions. Her responses to my questions were also always very thorough and heartfelt. Viv is very down to earth, calm, patient, and GREAT at what she does. Her photos are candid, natural, and creative. Although my fiancé and I felt super awkward in the beginning of the engagement shoot, Viv was quick to make us feel comfortable and at ease in front of the camera. We were worried through our embarrassment that we would look really dorky in our photos, but… there was not a single one of our engagement photos that we did not LOVE. Viv really knows how to work with lighting, angles, and reflections… and people. My mother-​in-​law said that we looked like moviestars!
To top it all off, our wedding photos turned out AMAZINGLY. She captured so many tiny details of the day that we had forgotten about… our wedding day went by so quickly that we wished we could do it all over again, but her photos were the next best thing! Viv and her assistant were so great at helping to coordinate and work with the timeline of the day. They are also so sneaky and behind the scenes, I forgot they were even around at times, and we were left with priceless images captured of special moments of our big day. Viv also even stepped in to help with pinning in my veil before the ceremony and removing the veil when it got too windy outside for pictures. She is just an all-​around, wonderful person to work with.
I seriously could go on forever about how happy we were with Viv. Save yourself from all the time putting together spreadsheets comparing costs and options for photographers… and go with Viv. :)

We worked with Viv for both our engagement and our wedding photography, and she consistently wowed us the entire time. She was quick to respond to emails, was super helpful on the day (even doing some emergency boutonnière repairs), had an extremely fast turnaround on edits – and most importantly, her photos were wonderful.
She was great at working our ideas into the shoot, and managed to work around some tricky environmental issues (huge winds while on Treasure Island, and you should see her fog shots on her website).
Add that to the fact that she’s extremely competitively priced for the Bay Area, and we couldn’t be happier that we worked with her!

For your wedding? Just go with Vivian already!!! ;)
Vivian captured the best moments (and hundreds of other great ones) at our wedding on a cliff overlooking the beach and our indoor restaurant reception last winter on Valentine’s Day (!), 2014. It was so wonderful of her and her second photographer to climb that hill, join us on a holiday, and even work with us on our limited budget. Vivian was super responsive and clear. She’s detail-​oriented and organized, while being warm and personable, making her so easy to work with. Her enthusiasm about shooting our small, intimate wedding made us excited and feel special. She even provided easy and effective tips during the wedding planning process so things could run smoothly the day of, helping us manage our worries about the weather and possibly staining my dress! Viv was great at helping this couple feel relaxed well before and during our wedding day.
We went with Vivian in the first place because her work is so spectacular. Our pics turned out beautiful – clear, vibrant, and natural. She made us feel comfortable, while getting great shots. During our ceremony, she was never intrusive, yet totally there and present. She scouted the best spots to take picturesque photos. She worked with us to get all the special portraits we wanted with our family and 3 dogs! Things worked out so well, we were ahead of schedule on our timeline. During our indoor reception, Viv was pretty much part of the fam. This is reflected in the kind of candids she got that evening.
When we look at our photos, we are transported back to that beautiful winter day. We thank Viv so much and highly recommend her photography and services.

Vivian shot our wedding at Calistoga Ranch on March 16, 2014! She was outstanding from our first email to the editing of our hundreds of wedding photos. Vivian was prepared, professional and a patient gem!
She provided bobby pins in a hair crisis, managed family members during photos and even kept us on time. Our family and friends loved her spirt and spunk. Viv is one of the most competitively priced photographers in the area. During planning, she was so helpful with timing questions and assisting with building our tight day-​of timeline. She’s the real deal!
With all that said, she’s a superb photographer. The lighting of every photo was spectacular. We couldn’t be more pleased with our decision to hire Vivian. Trust me, as an event planner myself, she’ll be the best vendor you hire! We highly recommend Vivian!

Here is why you hire Viv:
1. Her photography is out of this world.
2. She’s great to work with.
Viv shot our wedding, and everything that has been said in other reviews is true. The photos turned out even better than I’d hoped, she captured moments I didn’t even know were happening, got beautiful shots of almost all our guests, and even made an undecorated church basement look good. Most of all, the photos look the way I felt.
She’s super organized and responsive, knows exactly what she is doing, and delivered our photos weeks early. We’ve received so many compliments on photos themselves, as well as comments from guests about how cool our photographer was.
I’ll be referring her to other people who are getting married, and I hope I have the occasion to hire her again.

If you’re wondering if you should hire Vivian, the answer is that yes, of course you should. It might just end up being the best and most important decision you make while planning your wedding. She is as amazing, friendly, professional, approachable, funny, and talented as her website will lead you to believe.
What I love about her work (yes, I still stalk her Facebook page despite getting married months ago…) is that she has this unifying touch to all of her photos so that you can clearly tell she shot them, but she does such a great job of capturing each couple and family as they are, for who they are. I think that’s the sign of a true artist and not just a photographer.
We love our engagement and wedding pics. My mom continues to pull out her cell phone to share them with anyone and everyone that is willing to indulge her. My dad cried all over again when seeing them for the first time. My BIL is on the autism spectrum and doesn’t do well in large crowds or unfamiliar settings, and Vivian somehow managed to capture a picture of him SMILING. SMILING. She sent us a sneak peak of a few pics the day after, uploaded 50 or so to Facebook within a few days, and sent us our pictures weeks early.
My husband and I don’t take photos. Ever. We can barely remember to charge our camera, let alone pack it on trips. We knew getting non-​awkward pictures of us, that we would want to look back on forever and actually share with others, was going to be quite the task but Viv NAILED IT. She listened to everything we had to say about the «look» that we wanted to achieve and she delivered exactly the feeling we wanted. Of course, not being a photographer, I had no idea how to describe that «look» in the appropriate jargon, so I stalked Pinterest and assembled a collage of photos I liked and of photos I hated. And I sent them to her. Like all 50 of them. And she was able to take my non-​verbal «instructions» and get us exactly what we wanted.
Three months after booking her, I was a bridesmaid in my friend’s wedding and saw so many things that made me nervous about my own wedding day. I emailed her this ginormous, incoherent email and she would have been fully within her right to laugh at me, I mean, looking back, I’m laughing at myself. But instead, she called me right away, addressed each of my concerns, and put me at ease.
On our wedding day, she rolled with our weird mix of traditional, egalitarian Jewish customs as though she’d been bat mitzvahed herself. She snuck off and captured my friends’ shenanigans to our car and still captured everything in the reception we wanted. She’s like a ninja spy or something!
And huge shout outs to her second shooter who *RAN* to capture a picture of my mom on the dance floor when I deemed it must be recorded for posterity.
Hire her. You won’t be disappointed.

We hired Vivian for our wedding at City Hall and she was wonderful! Very professional, always responded quickly to our questions before the event, and fast turnaround on sending over our full set of photos after. The photos were all amazing. Couldn’t be happier with our choice.

Without hesitation, I give Viv 5 stars! From the very beginning when I was scoping out photographers, she stood out to me because she was responsive and friendly, even though our budget was smaller. She is very professional in all interactions. Her contract was easy to understand, she delivered everything on time (early, actually), and was happy to address any and all of my questions.
Most of all, she is a very talented photographer. Her pictures are so fresh and vibrant, not at all stuffy or stilted. That’s what attracted me to her work, and she brought that style to our wedding as well. We could not be more pleased with the results. I would love to work with Viv again, as she does great family photos too, and I would definitely recommend her to friends.