Colleen Taylor

My own fair city apparently leads the country in nuptial spending-- according to statistics released this week, the average wedding for a San Franciscan couple costs $45,284!

Having planned my September 2009 wedding, I have to say I'm not exactly shocked-- it's easy to run up a huge bill getting hitched. We weighed our options for getting married here in S.F., but ultimately decided to wed in Santa Barbara (which wasn't a cost-motivated choice, as S.B. isn't exactly bargain central either.) The fact is, holding any event in Coastal California has the potential to be extremely pricey. 

Even so, we were able to throw a great wedding for much, much less than $45K.  Going forward, under the tag for "wedding", you'll find a few posts on how we kept our spending way below par.