Once upon a time I was engaged. During this time period I did some research into the "average" wedding. Turns out the "average" wedding costs $35k. Fuck everything about that noise. I'd so much rather have a down payment on a house than a wedding. I've decided if I ever do get married, here are my requirements/desires (and don't make fun of my short list, it has taken me a very long time even to get this far. I was never one to daydream about my wedding day). - backyard wedding - booze - all my friends - dancing That's all I can imagine I would want. I assume I would probably wear white and have a dress of some sort but frankly I don't even know what I would want it to look like. I would just want everyone to have a whole ton of fun.
By most peoples standards we had a very modest wedding. We didn't want one to begin with, we wanted to elope but parental pressures caused us to have one. We took the money we saved and the money that was gifted to us and socked it away in mutual funds. Then, 6 years later had enough to put down 20% on a very nice home, a home I just sold on Trulia's "make me move" section. I made out pretty well. So, your plan to not have a huge wedding but to save your $ for a downpayment is a good one. It's worked well for us.
The last person I dated and then broke up with - in the course of breaking up we had a conversation about values as we felt ours were pretty drastically different. He admitted he didn't even know what my values were. "Logic, maybe?" he asked. I smiled.