Maui Wedding Wedding in Maui, Wedding Photographers

Most Bang for My Wedding Buck?? Help!?

My Fiance and I are Grad Students so we are on a very limited budget. However, our families are going to help us out as much as possible, though they can't spare much either. We have a few months to start saving before we need to start booking venders. Regardless of where we have our wedding, a portion of our guests will be coming in from several different states. Here are the options we are considering to have out wedding/reception. Our guest list is about 100 - 110 (and this is the shaved down version). We would like a simple but elegant reception.

We live in Washington DC - everything is expensive here. Ideally, we would get married in a church and have a cocktail reception at a winery or such. We would have to purchase the alcohol through the winery ($) and hire a caterer for the food and service ($), and then we would have a transportation issue as well. Can we feed 100 on a cocktail menu?

Charleston, SC - We LOVE this place. Everything is cheaper down south, but it is a tourist destination so prices may be inflated. The guest list would be cut (some people won't travel that far) so that could save us money, but I would have to hire a wedding planner to handle the details since I am far away. Thinking about a wedding in a garden or public park, reception at a nice restaurant/banquet hall. Guests would order off the menu, we would pay.

My hometown/Parent's home - Church is .5mile from my house. We would have to rent everything ($), tent, china etc. We would make most of the food ourselves, but hire servers to serve it family style/ clean up. Guest Hotels would be 30min away, however. We do have ample parking at our. home. But.. its still a back yard.

What do you think is the best option? I am craftly and would love to do my own flowers, invites and crafts to help save money, if the location allows.