Piedmont Community Hall 711 Highland Avenue • Oakland • CA 94611

Your Piedmont Community Hall rental includes eight hours in the Hall and patio, plus the city's tables and chairs: 200 white chairs, 20 five-foot rounds, 16 eight-foot banquet tables, cocktail tables and a half-round sweetheart table. Two facility attendants set up tables and chairs, stock the restrooms and set out trash bins, and there's a fully equipped kitchen, a sound system, wireless microphones and a projector screen. You'll bring the rest: catering and bar, linens and silver, heaters, tents if you want them, and liability insurance with $1,000,000 in general and liquor coverage. There's no day-of coordinator, so plan on your own.

Yes, everything can happen in the park at Piedmont Community Hall. The most popular ceremony spot is the Amphitheater in a redwood grove, with patio seating for 120 plus bleachers for 80 more. You can also marry at the Exedra Plaza Fountain, which seats up to 180, or keep it tiny at the Japanese Tea House. Then guests stroll over to the Hall, which seats 120 for dinner, or the patio, which holds up to 200.

Bring them! At Piedmont Community Hall you can choose any vendors you like, including your own caterer, and up to two food trucks. Just let the city know who you've booked so staff can coordinate. You can also bring your own beer, wine and champagne, served from a controlled bar, plus two signature cocktails with approval. Your caterer handles cleanup, and rentals have to arrive the day of your event and be picked up that evening.

At Piedmont Community Hall in Piedmont, an eight-hour weekend rental of the Hall and patio is $4,867 on Fridays and Sundays and $5,408 on Saturdays. Piedmont residents pay less: $3,260 on Fridays and Sundays and $3,623 on Saturdays. Extra time is $226 an hour on Fridays and Sundays and $265 on Saturdays, more if you ask within seven days of your event. Ceremony sites add $387 for the Amphitheater, $490 for the Japanese Tea House or $525 for the Exedra Plaza Fountain when booked with the Hall. A $1,000 security deposit is due when your reservation is confirmed. Since catering, bar, linens and rentals are all bring-your-own, the rest of your budget is up to you.

A weekend wedding at Piedmont Community Hall gets an eight-hour base rental, and events can run between 8am and midnight. Amplified music ends at 11pm indoors and 10pm outdoors, and alcohol service has to stop 90 minutes before your permit ends. When your rental time is up, everyone needs to be out of the Hall, so if you want more time, request extra hours through the rental office ahead of time.

If you've booked the Hall, rain just moves your ceremony indoors: the Hall seats up to 200 for a ceremony, with a high beamed ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood floors and chandeliers. If you'd rather stay outside, you can bring in a tent through a rental vendor, since the city doesn't provide one. The Piedmont Fire Department requires a tent permit, but there's no fee for it.

Piedmont Community Hall hosts just one event per day and lets you bring your own vendors, including your caterer, beer, wine and champagne, so the day and the budget are yours to shape. The setting is a city park with a redwood grove amphitheater, azaleas, camellias, flowering cherry trees and a stream behind the Mediterranean-style Hall, with views of the San Francisco skyline. Your ceremony and reception both happen on-site, and Piedmont residents get a lower rate on every weekend day.

Piedmont Community Hall doesn't have separate dressing rooms, so couples who get ready on-site often rent the Japanese Tea House, a historic building donated in 1946 that sits beside the Hall among flowering trees. It's $490 with a Community Hall rental for a three-hour base rental, and you can enter 30 minutes before your permit time. Your access to the Hall itself starts at the time on your reservation confirmation.