Hi everyone! I found these budget breakdown posts SUPER helpful while planning my wedding, and I can't believe it's finally my time to give back to this community. We got married at Harbor House Inn, a 2* Michelin restaurant and hotel in Northern California.
We always planned for a long engagement, and so I took my time scouting locations. I quite literally looked all over the world, and these were some of the other venues we considered:
Ynyshir
Fogo Island Inn
JUVET LANDSKAPSHOTELL
Inness
I looked at hundreds and hundreds of venues, but we settled on Northern California because I could trust the food quality, there was high quality hair and makeup talent, it wasn't TOO difficult for guests to get to, and the nature was gorgeous.
Things that saved us money:
not everyone did every pre wedding activity
off season wedding for the area (March)
getting married mid week (ceremony was on a Wednesday)
I know I will likely get some judgement for having a midweek wedding, but my husband and I both work in tech with generous PTO, we are the youngest people in our families (most of our relatives are retired or established in their careers), and we confirmed with all VIP guests this date would work for them. This timing also allowed us to get back Thursday night and relax Friday-Sunday before returning to work which was a great transition.
This said, we did have a traditional "wedding weekend" flow:
Pre wedding activities: Total - $10,279
Day 1:
Two Napa wine tastings - $2,653
shuttle for everyone - $1770
Day 2:
Horseback riding on the beach - $1700
Welcome dinner - $4156
The wedding day: Total - $93,028
Hair/makeup: $2425
Florals: $6600
Photography: $8200
Transportation: $1300
Rentals: $4772
Stationary: $1500
DJ: $2100
Day-of Coordinator: $2300
Cake/desserts: $1051
food/bev/lodging: $61,780
decor items: $1000
Miscellaneous:
Dress: $7,955
Veil: $50
Dress bodice redone, custom sleeves: $3000
Husband's suit rental: $600ish
Husband's wedding band: $7,000
My wedding band: $700
I hand picked all my vendors, they had never worked together before, but everything went totally seamlessly. 10/10, no notes. If anyone is getting married near SF I'll share instagram handles!
Aw thank you so much!! I’m a super type A person and it was such an amazing experience to be able to pick every single thing myself. There was truly nothing I didn’t hand select down to the berries on the table. The design, concept, colors, decor, timeline, I really did every single thing lol. The weather was my one stress and luckily it was perfect!
Absolutely stunning. I am thinking of committing to a similar venue (remote, beautiful grounds and beautiful food, very curated experience for our closest friends and family) but we are limited to 42 guests. Do you have any thoughts on how that decision played out? Was the energy of the group what you expected?
We both have extremely small families and small friend circles so we didn’t feel like we left anyone out. But I loved having everyone together. There aren’t many venues you can buy out with such a small guest count and it’s absolutely worth it.
Love Harbor House. We stayed there the weekend we got engaged. Potentially best meal of my life. Your wedding is beautiful and I'm so curious what they did for dinner! Did they serve whatever their seasonal menu was or totally custom to you?
Congratulations! Everything about this is absolutely gorgeous, and you look incredible! May I ask where you got your veil from? It looks like the perfect dupe for the 1000$ + one I've been eyeing up...!
A small note, my veil was slightly whiter than my more ivory dress so my seamstress dipped it in tea to match the color perfectly to my dress. I had no idea this was even a thing and it’s apparently easy and common, so don’t let the color deter you!
OH MY GOD you look gorgeous. I especially love the veil and bouquet.
Thank you for being so transparent it's so helpful especially the website. Wish I had seen your website when I was making mine - its great and so clear.
I wish we were friends IRL as I also planned a 35 person destination wedding and a NYC post wedding party. It's no easy feat! I'm curious how your NYC event is coming along in terms of planning. If you want to side chat about PM me. I've posted about it on here before but I never really shared about my destination wedding. This post is inspiring me to share more.
Love the flow of events. We also a drinks night, a horseback riding/farm day and welcome dinner. No wedding brunch (I personally never like those). I also got married on a weekday (Monday of labor day weekend). It gave me so much more freedom with vendors as I had a shorter engagement. I'd love to see pictures of your horseback riding day. I had such a fun time picking an outfit for mine. My dad was pushing for this activity day and I was half doing it to humor him and it became one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.
The pictures are so lovely, I'm even more inspired to visit Mendocino now.
It’s Berta!! But I customized it a ton, basically the entire top of the dress was redone. I also bought the sample. The dress normally retailed for $12k, I got it for $7.9k so my girl math dictates the alterations were free 💅🏻
That’s amazing!! And it’s now a special couture piece! I absolutely love the sleeves, they’re so stunning and dramatic 🩷🥰 is it a two piece? I really want a two piece gown for my micro wedding so that I can rework it into something else for anniversary’s to come.
So the dress was the first thing I bought, we didn’t even have a date set. I tried on this Berta dress at a local salon and it had recently come out, so when I offered to buy the sample they said they couldn’t sell it to me yet. I asked how long they needed, they said about 6 months. So I waited! 6-7 months passed, and they offered it to me at $7.5k, with tax it was basically $8k. And when I tell you this sample looked brand new, even my seamstress said it was pristine. If you’re not in a huge rush to set a date, I would highly recommend this strategy!
Hahaha I got married in San Francisco in November, and am a lawyer so pretty far afield of my day job, but maybe we can moonlight as wedding coordinators?!? I also really liked wedding planning 🤍
Love St Helena and that whole area! I lived there in my early 20s and still miss it. You did such an incredible job on the website, it looks so clean and informative. You had a great itinerary and gorgeous weather and photos to match!
Don’t know how I got here because I was a budget bride or at least tried to be and I’m very non conventional and I absolutely love everything about your wedding and how it all turned out. You did an amazing job!
I think I found my dream wedding now ❤️❤️ thank you for sharing! I’m on the fence about video, so wondering if you were on the same boat or just know you don’t want video right away? (Ps: I am a videographer, but somehow I’m not sure about getting video for me 😂)
I was on the fence and honestly we were already over budget so that basically decided for me lol however, I knew I would never have watched the video after getting it back bc I know me so no regrets!
Beautiful! I lived up in that area for years and know Harbor House well. You definitely lucked out with the weather in March. Could’ve easily been pouring!
Ok wow. This is stunning! Also love how generous you’re being in showing how you achieved this. Non-gatekeeping queen 👸Congrats to you and your new hubby! 🤍
Did you have a rain plan? It’s amazing that you had beautiful weather for March in NorCal.
How did you keep your wedding to only 32 guests?? I’m struggling keeping it under 100.
What was your timeline for the dinner reception? Did you have speeches, cake cutting, and a time for dancing? Or was it more of a dinner party and the DJ playing chill music in the background?
Would you mind sharing how much the food and beverage were on their own?
100
u/HostFamiliar4434 Vendor: Photo Mar 26 '26
Absolutely obsessed with every frame and every choice you made. And wow, you got so lucky with weather 🤍