Help! But not in a dire way--just Iowa wedding planning

[catherineldf]

So here's what we've got so far:
Rings, ordered and taken care of
Officiant, all volunteered and selected
Several volunteers to form a wedding party of sorts and possibly bake a cake

General plan of attack - sometime real soon, I take the day off (or am out of work, whichever comes first) and we toddle down to Decorah with whoever's got time and wants to be a witness and get us a license. Jana goes back on biz day 4 to pick up the license.
Some period of time passes until ta-da, the weekend of September 19th rolls around. We converge somewhere in Iowa City with said officiant, some vague ideas of wedding vows, rings and a license. Plus hopefully a few of our friends. We do the thing.
Next weekend, we have a party/reception in the Minneapple. Location time/place TBD.

There are many blank spots regarding places and such. We're leaning toward City Park in Iowa City because we always liked it when we lived there, but are amenable to other inexpensive options. We'd prefer daylight options to make life easier for our friends and their schedules and would rather  the out of doors than in. Apparently, we need someone to snap a few informal photos as well.
Any suggestions on places? Volunteers? :-)

Reception/party. We have a very small house, as those of you who've been here can vouch. And a reasonably tight budget (read: my current contract ends at the end of July and I don't know how long it may take to get a new one) so we're looking to do this on the cheap. Any thoughts on good locations in the Cities for a reception for anywhere from 20-80 people? Or things you liked about your own or other people's receptions?
We want this to be fun and low stress for all concerned, including us, so relatively painless is very welcome. :-)

Comments

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Afternoon tea (read: NO booze or large amounts of food) is a lot cheaper than a sit-down reception.

My friend had her reception at the park shelter in Theodore Wirth Park, believe it or not, and she said it was cheap and AWESOME, and totally covered in case of rain.

September 19th is Éiden's b-day! You have good taste in dates.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned your awesomeness this week? Allow me to correct that immediately - you are awesome, this is brilliant and we love it. And a friend of mine is just getting her tea business started. :-D
We've been avoiding the 19th for the Mpls part because it's Rosh Hashanah and we wanted people there who would otherwise be doing other things. It's less of a conflict for our Iowa friends so we opted to split the weekends up. I'll be sending out invites for the reception - do consider yourself and your family invited (official emails to follow) - and glad to hear it doesn't conflict with b-day celebrating. :-)

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I am so pleased. I KNEW all those years of obsessively reading Miss Manners would pay off!

And I'm surprised and delighted to hear we will be on the list.