Help! Looking for Wedding/Reception Sites in the Bay Area

In My Humble Opinion
1

The subject title says it all. My betrothed and I are hunting around for a nice place to get hitched next summer, and have been having a hard time. Has anyone gotten married in the Bay Area, or attended a wedding there?

Things we’re looking for:

  1. Reasonably (ha!) priced: say no more than $1000 for the wedding site, $1500 for the reception site.

  2. We want the wedding to be outside, somewhere pretty.

  3. The reception hall would ideally allow us to bring our own caterer and alcohol, although this is not a requirement.

  4. The reception hall has to have a place to dance.

We’re probably going to have around 70 guests.

If you help us, we will be very grateful. Not grateful enough to invite you to the actual wedding of course, but grateful enough to grovel on email, and maybe send you leftover cake. :slight_smile:

2

Tampa Bay? San Fransisco Bay? Bay of Pigs?

3

San Francisco Bay. She lives in south Bay, actually (soon I will too, hooray!), so proximity to San Jose is always a plus.

For our honeymoon, we plan to re-enact the Bay of Pigs invasion.

4

Try the local golf courses.
I’m having mine at the golf course here in Antioch (About 30 miles away from San Francisco) and it only cost 100 dollars to reserve it for the evening, and 15/guest. We’re having about 70 guests.
If you want to try the one here in Antioch, it’s The Lone Tree Golf Course. Beautiful course and the owner and manager are both really nice.

5

Admittedly, I don’t know the area at all -
but I just attended an absolutely gorgeous wedding at the Thomas Fogarty winery. No idea how much it costs, and I’m pretty sure they’ll want to supply the alcohol. But it has requirements 2 & 4 - and I think the bride & groom chose their own caterer.
Still, absolutely gorgeously picturesque place to get hitched. Will look great in the wedding photos.

6

I was married at Wildwood Acres in Lafayette, in an outdoor ceremony with about 70 guests. They don’t let you bring in your own caterer, but the food is good. I’m pretty sure it’s fine if you bring your own wine - I don’t remember if there was a “pouring charge” or whatever they call it. The setting is drop-dead gorgeous, for both the wedding and the reception. There are a few photos still online from my wedding. I honestly don’t remember what the place cost, but it was the cheapest one we looked at.

The dance floor is concrete, but smooth and easy to dance on. My husband and I are competitive ballroom dancers, so we wanted a good floor - it worked fine.

Email me if you want recommendations on DJ, flowers, cake, photographer, videographer… :wink:

7

Found it. It says no BYOB, though - maybe it’s changed in the last three years.

Here Comes the Guide is a great resource for finding places for weddings in California.

8

ENugent, we’ve already purchased our copy of Here Comes the Guide. It is a very good book, to be sure.

Thanks for all the ideas so far. Keep 'em coming! (Personal testimony is so helpful, IMO.)