I had a full church wedding with 5 attendants each, 3 little ones, an open bar, catered meal for 325 guests plus a honeymoon for a week and we spent a little less than $9000 - $2600 of that was supper, so $6400 on all the rest.
My dress cost ~$360. We bought his ring at Walmart for $40. Each of the bridesmaids had a different dress, and all but one were on sale (I paid for half of these dresses). We bought the flower girl dresses at Burlington Coat Factory and gave them <$10 tieras to finish things off. Don't waste your money on those M&Ms with the writing on them...very overrated. My new last name starts with an "M", so I said that we put the monogram on all the M&Ms
I made pearl necklaces and earrings for everyone and a bracelet for me out of real pearls, and only spent $140 for 13 sets for the bridesmaids gifts. If you get started early, you can use 40% off coupons for Michaels...otherwise, stay out of there! Get most everything from ebay. I made all the save the date cards, invitations, thank you cards, and programs either using printsmadeeasy.com or my own printer and Copymax to cut and punch holes in everything. I made my own veil (with mom's help).
There are a lot of details on my blog, specifically here:
Saving money on my wedding (my contribution to someone else's blog): Cptacek's Personal Finance Blog
I found that making things yourself and not getting hooked on a dream wedding was the best thing to do. Concentrate first on the fact that no matter what things look like or turn out, you end up being married at the end of the day.
Repeat over and over "simple and elegant" because the more simple things are, the less decorations you need.