I appreciate the diversity of opinions provided and am taking them into consideration.
One option I have recently heard of is doing "Chef's choice" for food options. This can save 15-20% on the cost of food due to making it easier on the kitchens for ordering and cooking of the food.
I will keep looking into options and only spending money on the part of the event that adds value to my life. It seems like a lot of the silly "extras" really start to add up and do not add the value they cost.
We did a big fancy wedding (about 230 people) at a catering hall. It cost a lot.
Two of the things I specifically remember doing to negotiate on the price per head was telling them that I didn't want 1) a raw bar at the cocktail hour or 2) a wedding cake. They really like to show off their raw bars where I got married, but they charge an additional $$/head (I forget how much), and I didn't want it. So they "threw in" a ceviche dish instead and didn't charge the additional $$/head. They also offered a plated dessert with the cost of the meal, so I opted for that. Wedding cake was an additional $3/head. Then they decided it would look bad for them (to the guests) not to have a cake, so they threw it in with the price. We did a Saturday luncheon after a morning ceremony, which was cheaper than Saturday night.
We also opted out of the catering hall's "extras" (fancier tablecloths and chairs, things like that). A friend did our flowers for free (I bought them wholesale from a flower market the day before the wedding and bought vases from Ikea for her to use for the centerpieces). The band was a latin band and cost about 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of "wedding bands." A friend took a video of the ceremony and we didn't hire a videographer.
We did hire a professional photographer, but we didn't buy an album from him. We bought one set of prints and all negatives and I made our album.
The wedding dress was actually designed to be a bridesmaid dress, but I got it in ivory. Loved it.
We did pay for the hotel bill for immediate family who were coming from out of town. Definitely worth it.
My ring was my grandmother's wedding ring, and DH's was around $100 from a local jeweler.
I kept a spreadsheet of all expenses to keep myself on point. That helped.