It's fun reading about people's wedding dreams. It is also possible that over time your dream wedding will change, and that's OK.
I had the typical fairytale wedding dream when I was growing up, and I talked about it a lot. I wanted a Cinderella type dress and to have it in a large, beautiful place. By the time I was getting married my goals had changed drastically. I wanted simplicity and a relaxed event. I was also aware that none of us had money and was mature enough to say that it was OK to not spend what we didn't have. We ended up doing a lot ourselves and getting friends and relatives to pitch in. Over all I think the wedding only cost around 1000.00, keep in mind this was in the 1990's.
Now that I've gone through my divorce and have very different goals in life and different responsibilities, I would want to do something even more simple than that. Either a small private ceremony with a very few of the closest people present or even JP wedding would be enough. I'd want a special dinner or day out with my sons to solidify the fact we are a new family in their minds, either just before the honeymoon or immediately after.
I knew a woman from my church who offered her stepson and his fiance money to not have a wedding. I forgot how much it was, but it was significant. They took the money and went to a JP.
I had an aunt who took out a bank loan, maxed out three credit cards, and sold some of their horses to pay for their oldest daughter's wedding. It caused a lot of fighting in my aunt's marriage and a lot of gossip in the family. Her second daughter eloped and ran off to another state with her fiance to get away from the stress of getting married with her mother around.
It's perfectly fine to want and to have an expensive wedding, if you can afford it. It's also fine to not want that or to do it. Either way does not make you any more or less married. It's also OK to change your mind and not stay fixed on a specific idea, to either go from elaborate to simple goal, or from simple goal to an elaborate one.
OH, another thing.. the pictures.. my aunt did the pictures for our wedding, and she is kind of OCD (really, not being cute). It was terrible. We could not do anything because every step of the way we had to pause for a picture and it had to look just right. It took forever to cut the cake because we had to pose with the cake before we cut it, then when we picked up the utensil, then a shot of just our hands holding the utensil together, then stop mid-cut to pose while in the process of cutting it, then pose when we were lifting the piece of cake, then pose when we were sinking our forks into it, then pose holding the pieces of cake in our fingers before giving each other a bit, then bite slowly so she could get a pic of us doing that... there was no ceremony, only a photo shoot. gah. Don't do that.
I've seen plenty of guys help with wedding stuff and it turned out well. 
