My wedding was the usual affair common in my set in the 1960's, church wedding, reception in the church social hall, cake-nuts-mints-punch, no booze. Open invitation to everyone in the church. I already had my dress left over from a previous engagement (hey, it was my dream dress that I bought in Vienna and dammit, I was going to wear it!). I think the whole thing cost about $300 tops. My mom made the bridesmaid dresses.
My daughter had to have a moderately big event. Church wedding, limo, reception in the banquet hall of a nice local restaurant, food, champagne punch (with very little champagne in it), no booze because the bride and a lot of her friends were underage and I didn't want to have to police the under-age drinking. There was a bar down the hall and if someone couldn't make it through a couple of hours without a strong drink, they could walk down the hall and get one and the bartender could do the policing. I barely got the wedding paid off before the divorce. Sigh.
My granddaughter, on the other hand, and her fiance were very financially astute. They wanted a fun wedding with family and friends around without getting in a money bind over it. I asked her what she was planning to wear and she said, "Oh, I'll wear something I have." Nope....she was going to wear a wedding dress whether she liked it or not, so I flew up one weekend and we went dress hunting. Luckily, she's a size 3 (sample size) and we were able to find a sample wedding dress that she absolutely loved for $135, which I bought. Very simple dress, lacy and sleek, just her style. No veil. She made all the bouquets and decorations, using a lace-burlap-pearls theme, which was popular at the time. Her step-grandfather cut down a tree on his property and made/sanded/finished slabs of wood that she used as the base for her table decorations. Tables and chairs were borrowed from their church.
They had a Saturday afternoon backyard wedding. She described it as " Hey, we're having a BBQ. Oh, and we're getting married, too." Instead of renting marquee tents and a wedding arch, they bought them off Amazon and ended up selling them afterward for quite a bit more than they had paid for them. Friends gave them "favors" instead of wedding presents like supplying a large catering-style BBQ grill, photography from a friend who was trying to break into the business, a friend got buns from the business he worked at, another got meat from his business. Her maids wore whatever navy blue dresses they had and the groom and his guys wore navy pants, grey shirts and navy ties. A friend got "ordained" to marry them (their minister wouldn't perform the ceremony because they had been living together....but that's another story). Somebody else got a discount on beer, booze and mixers. The cake and cupcakes and side dishes came from Costco. Another friend rented them a port-a-potty which was behind the garage for the guys to use. (They only had one bathroom in the house and that was reserved for the ladies. Altogether, they paid less than $2000 for the wedding and got at least $500 of that back. They were just as married as if they had spent $50,000 on a lavish wedding. Everyone had a great time. Folks were dressed "nice casual" and they all went clubbing that evening.
Actually we did go to Reno afterward and eat at some seafood buffet, that was amazing.