Yay Amy! :D That is wonderful
Our wedding was great - we had about 90 people (bearing in mind that hubby is the youngest of 8 with 21 nieces/nephews so 40 or so of the guest were immediate family on his side! It's impossible to have anything small when it comes to our combined families). If your family wants specific photos, do what we did and nominate one person from each side to coordinate with the family who wants what photo. My family is small, so we didn't need to, but with my husband's family - it would have taken hours if we'd not thought of that beforehand.
We had a church wedding, but it was described by a number of guests as the most secular church wedding they'd attended (which was our goal).
Our reception was a cocktail-type affair - finger food, no seating plan, good wine/beer. It was really just a great party with lots of laughter, tears, dancing.
I wish i'd been able to spend more time with people, though. Our photos took way longer than we'd planned (due to hubby's dad wanting specific sets of photos with his clan), but that's ok - while the day is primarily about the two people getting married, some concessions should be made for family
We asked the groom's sister to be the emcee of the event - she asked us a series of questions about how we wanted the day run - at first we were both a bit "whatever" but soon came to realise that there are things to think about - speeches, when food is served (either seated meals or nibbles), when the cake is cut. Even if you're not having specific traditions like cake cutting, etc, speeches are important - and to know when they'll happen is good.
Another tip, if you're not eating a 3 course meal (which forces you to sit down) is to, in between wedding/reception, have your caterers prepare something for the bridal party - to have somewhere separate - we had a 1/2hr to ourselves to have a glass of wine with some nibbles - because honestly, i didn't eat anything else after that.
We had such a wonderful, memorable day - no major hiccups at all, surrounded by people we love the most in the world - it was great to see them all together having a great time. It's really rare for my husband's side of the family to all be together at one time (living interstate, etc) so the day became more than our wedding, it became a huge family reunion - people seeing each other again, my family really getting to know his family
EDIT:
I will also endorse friends and family helping out - i feel bad that I didn't shout out to my husband's family (as well as my mum) who did SO much to help out - icluding setting up the reception/church, played the church music at the right time (we had 3 songs - walking down the aisle *Teardrop - Massive Attack* Signing the register *The Luckiest - Ben Folds* and being pronounced husband and wife *Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney*). We had an ipod on shuffle for the reception and we chose ambient contemporary stuff - Air, Massive Attack, Zero 7, etc and then 60's mowtown and 70's funk later on
Great dancing music!
Our venue was all in one - it's a Catholic Conference Centre with a chapel - we had the kids under 13 in one room (with kids food) and the adults in the main dining room. The place wasn't flashy, but we did a good job making it look good
We had a great wedding car (1929 Dodge convertible) and a great photographer - we didn't pay the earth for him at all, but he was one of the more expensive items on the list. We were lucky to only pay 250 for our videographer, who is an old family friend of my husband's - he works for one of the major TV stations here, so we were very lucky in that way.
We had wedding cupcakes as well, and our cake 'topper' (the part you cut) was just a giant cupcake - everyone thought it was great (including us). The cakes were AMAZING too.
We didn't scrimp on drinks - my husband's brother owns a chain of bottle shops, so he picked out really good wine and beer for us (a lot of our friends are foodies and love good alcolhol) and we didn't want people walking away from the reception saying 'great party, shit food and wine'.
