u/discoveroverthere

Hi all, I finally got around to writing about our city hall wedding and wanted to share our recap since I know there are a ton of different ways to do a city hall wedding and this subreddit was so helpful to me while planning our own! You can also check out this post for a complete breakdown of the weekend: https://discoveroverthere.com/san-francisco-city-hall-wedding-recap/

Our wedding was back in September 2025 and I wanted to share how we split the weekend across two days since I couldn't find many examples of this format.

We did SF City Hall on a Friday at 3pm (one-hour ceremony, 4th floor) with ~22 close family and friends, cocktail hour, and a dinner reception that night.

Then a separate Saturday after-party for ~80 people. It let us keep the actual ceremony small and intimate without making our local friends feel left out.

Day 1 (Friday): the actual wedding
Day 1 total: ~$20,310

• 3pm one-hour ceremony, 4th Floor North Gallery ($1,150 City Hall permit)
• Black SUV Escalade for transportation from the Fairmont to Golden Gate Bridge + Legion of Honor for photos, then to City Hall (~$430). I wanted a limo, but husband said it would feel too much like prom haha.
• Got ready at the Fairmont Buckingham Suite, 2 nights ($3,500). Worth it for the photos AND the space, we used it for cocktail hour after
• Cocktail hour back at the suite, DIY'd entirely with BevMo, IKEA glasses for the champagne tower, and Trader Joe's flowers. Brie Grazing Boards delivered the spread (~$670), plus decor (candles, linens, little touches) that we reused for dinner
• Photography (@yourgirlmark, ~$7,500) and content creator (@mybigdaybestie, ~$1,175) covered getting ready, Golden Gate Bridge photos, the ceremony, dinner, and a few hours of Saturday. Photography was the one area I refused to cut and I have zero regrets
• Dinner at Original Joe's North Beach, Salesian Room, the Exclusive package, 4 courses, ~$4,385 for ~20 people including alcohol (minimum was $3,000, we went over on drinks). One of the best-value private dining rooms in SF for a small wedding

Tips if you're considering city hall: the noise is real on a Friday afternoon. Kids screaming, tourists walking through. Aim for an earlier slot if quiet vows matter to you. Also the permit process is competitive. Someone challenged us for our date 14 months out and we had 48 business hours to scramble for a money order.

Day 2 (Saturday): the after-party
Day 2 total: ~$23,135

• Left Door buyout (the speakeasy above Bus Stop Bar in the Marina), 7-10pm, ~$17,934 covering food, drinks, and the space. Plus $500 for our own DJ, Akhil Dua, who absolutely delivered. Total: ~$18,435
• After-after-party karaoke at Pandora (~$4,700). Planned for 10-15 close friends, ended up with ~30 of us piled into the biggest room they had. Drinks flowing, singing at the top of our lungs until close. Highly recommend Pandora if you want a karaoke spot in SF that can actually fit a wedding-sized group

The space at Left Door is genuinely beautiful (floral wallpaper, velvet chairs, themed rooms) and the photos came out incredible. But I would not recommend Left Door for events right now. Three big issues:

• Communication was so poor I was DMing the events coordinator on Instagram to get responses
• A month before the wedding they doubled the DJ fee despite our signed contract and $9K deposit, and said the house DJ wouldn't take requests. We had to find our own.
• The night of, no one would tell us where we stood on the F&B minimum. We asked multiple times. Got the final bill a week later and found out we'd been $4,000 under, money we would've happily spent on shots and bottles to take home if anyone had told us. Their "make it right" gesture was a ~$500 comped meal

Beautiful venue but definitely don't recommend for private events. it's definitely worth calling out, though, that the staff and bartenders were absolutely amazing on the night of. they definitely made sure that we always had drinks in our hands and there was always food out on the table. They helped us coordinate the night because we also had a few speeches before the DJ started playing music. So my complaints above are specifically around the events team at Left Door and the folks working behind the scenes.

Total cost: ~$54,700

And if you're doing the math you'll notice Day 1 + Day 2 doesn't actually add up to $54,700 lol. Here's what I didn't break out above because it didn't really live on either day:

• Bridal attire (~$6,000): Jenny Yoo dress, alterations, Alexandra Grecco veil, shoes, jewelry, etc
• Wedding rings (~$2,000): custom rings we got made in Japan on a trip last year
• Hair, makeup, & lashes (~$1,245): went with Houseofglampro and was super happy with how it turned out
• Misc (~$2,000): marriage license, Uber vouchers for guests, Trader Joe's florals, Amazon decor (bud vases, table runners, Bagel's pink dress lol), tips, and a hundred other small things I stopped tracking by month 12 of planning.

I spent hours writing up our full weekend in detail over on my blog so if you want to see more photos and get a lot more context on the day itself, including the reasoning behind each venue, where we took photos, how we found our photographer, etc, I'm sharing the link here: https://discoveroverthere.com/san-francisco-city-hall-wedding-recap/

but feel free to message me with any questions!