Cost of a wedding

How much does a wedding cost for the Bay Area? Do people generally stay on budget or do they usually go over?

As everywhere ppl go over unless they have a strict budget laid out at the start. We were actually a little under budget. It depends on what you want. You can spend a little or a ton ;) We DIY a lot and managed to spend only about $11,000 total.

The size of your wedding matters too and whether you are choosing high end items- designer dress, letterpress invitations, large & tall floral centerpeices, etc. . .

There really are a lot of factors that go into your wedding budget and many decision that keep you in it or over it.

I started out with an estimated 50k budget. I'm about 10-20 over that. Our location, caterer, and photographer is taking most of that. we're getting married at either a vineyard or private estate in Napa, which means nothing is included and everything has to be rented, including staffing. for the reception our biggest cost is the rentals and staffing.

I'm way over my budget, mainly because I think I had an unrealistic budget to begin with given the size of my party and the geographical area that I live in and my (sometimes unreasonably) expensive taste. I originally thought we could do a wedding for $20K for 200 people, but it's turning out to be 2x that much.

I agree with Margaret about the unrealistic budget. I think that's a reason a lot of people go over their original budget. With weddings you realize things cost a lot more than you anticipate and since I had a long engagement, there was also inflation. I started with a 30k budget & ended up increasing it to 40k budget. At the end I spent 50k for 230 guests. But again, it's really what you choose. I attended a wedding that cost more than twice my wedding with fewer guests.

We gave ourselves pretty generous budget (35K) originally considering we should only have about 55-60 guests. We stayed within budget on food and site fees, but went over budget on many other items such as photography. The thing is even though photography is not as high a priority to me, it is to my fiancé. The photographer we both loved and thus booked turned out to be one of the higher end ones. So there goes an extra few Ks. To us, it's hard to stay within budget because we both kind of want "the best" for everything (That is still within our means, and of course "the best" can be subjective.) Originally we gave ourselves 3 priorities like what you hear people suggest you to do. But very soon we realized it's become a compulsion and the high standard goes beyond those 3 priorities, extending from one vendor to the next. It doesn't help FI is very generous with me. Another reason is because I'm far from being a DIY person. DIY can really help you cut costs. But I'm not crafty, and FI would rather we just pay someone else to do it so we don't have to deal with it. As a result of these few factors, now with our small wedding we're at about $43k, and we're not even done yet. I guess you can say we don't have enough self control, and that my FI spoils me too much.

It looks like the cost really vary based on the number of people and what you choose to splurge on. On one hand, guests probably care most about the food and entertainment. From my point of view though (someone getting married) I think photographer and venue are nice things to splurge on.

I don't think there is a general figure for Bay Area. Look at the replies so far. It all depends on how you want your wedding to be.

When I started planning, I had NO IDEA how much things cost in a wedding so I just threw out a figure of $15K for 100-120 people. After I figured what kind of wedding I wanted, $15K wasn't enough and ended up to be almost twice as much including rings and honeymoon.

I have seen Bay Area weddings done (mostly DIY daytime, super-casual affairs) for just a few thousand dollars and then it can hit over $100K. In general, California weddings are a bit more expensive than the average around the rest of the country, and it really depends on your tastes, wishes, and your willingness and time to do things yourself. I have to say that our budget for a small wedding of 50-75 people has doubled from what we originally anticipated. I had no idea how much good wedding vendors cost AND how important seemingly unimportant things become. HTH.