What to know about selecting a San Francisco Bay Area wedding venue
Venue: Foreign Cinema | Photos: Annie Hall
Venue: The Fairmont SF | Photos: JBJ Pictures
Venue: Legion of Honor | Photos: Anna Wu
Let’s dive into San Francisco Bay Area wedding venues and their unique differentiations in booking considerations from other California wedding venues.
The amount of fantastically beautiful wedding locations packed into the seven square miles of San Francisco is astounding. A vibrant and energetic city, whatever your style, there will be space to match.
Larger weddings can be easily hosted in well-known elegant and traditional locations like The Fairmont, The Julie Morgan Ballroom, or the Legion of Honor, and smaller weddings might find a gorgeous restaurant, garden, or private space like The Battery, or Foreign Cinema.
If your wedding style trends toward the eclectic or non-traditional style, San Francisco can offer you wedding venues like the Conservatory of Flowers or the Great American Music Hall to match your vibe.
Although the hotels, ceremony and reception venues might be close to one another, traffic, parking challenges and steep hills may make driving or walking from one location to another tricky, so keep the comfort of your guests in mind when planning how to get from one venue to another.
Another consideration for the comfort of your guests is the weather — even in the summer San Francisco can stay quite cold – and not have warmer or comfortable temperatures for outside wedding ceremony or receptions until September or October.
Due to this weather, September and October are extremely competitive for booking an outdoor wedding venue. Expect fewer date and time selections and higher prices.
If your heart is set on an outdoor San Francisco wedding, planning a year or more in advance might give you the best chance of getting your dream location. Otherwise the peak season for San Francisco weddings starts in June, with the lowest demand from December to March.
But don’t let the off-season fool you — it’s still San Francisco — so couples will have a lot of competition for reception sites, wedding dates, and they’ll be at higher prices than many other wedding sites in Northern California.
Once you’ve narrowed down where you want to be married, be sure to read our Step By Step Guide to Picking the Perfect Wedding Venue to help you focus and narrow down your wedding venue search. It also includes an extremely helpful Venue Question Guide to bring along when you start touring wedding sites.
Once you have your perfect wedding venue secured, you can start booking the rest of the wedding professionals you’ll need for a dream wedding. How much time you have before your date will determine the timeframe for when you need to book whom.
For a good guide on what other wedding vendors to book and when to book them, just add your wedding date and location on Event Hollow and it will automatically recommend by date when each service should be booked.
Key Considerations:
High season: For indoor weddings June-Oct are popular with the greatest demand and best time for outdoor weddings being Sept-Oct.
Low season: Dec.-Mar
Things to keep in mind: While there are many options in San Francisco, the demand is very high and there are the competition is high. The pricing can reflect the demand but there are some hidden gems on the outskirts of the city like Cavallo Point, The Conservatory of Flowers, or the Presidio Golf Club. San Francisco can be downright cold in the summer up until September and October, when it heats up. This can make outdoor weddings unpredictable and competitive.
Trends: San Francisco gives you options more than anywhere else in Northern California. San Francisco is perhaps best know for its elaborate and grand grand options. The Fairmont, The Westin St. Francis, the Legion of Honor, the Julia Morgan Ballroom, San Francisco City Hall or the Ferry Building.
Congrats and have fun planning!
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out at [email protected] We’re always happy to help!
