Elegantly Navigating Family Issues: The Budget

Aye.

This one is difficult.  The budget, and who is contributing what.
Remember the old tradition that the bride's family pays for almost everything?  Well, if we did that, we would be eloping.  My family has nothing to give, unless you count emotional drama.

Anyhoo, P and I are going to contribute what we can, which amounts to about 3,000 dollars.  MAX.  I will not go into debt for our wedding.  Let's repeat that, just to make sure.  I will not go into debt for our wedding. 
When we decided to have our wedding in Wisconsin to accomodate his family, we talked with them about what they were willing to contribute financially.  They were vague, but they assured us that they would help us out significantly.
Now, every piece of advice I've read or have been given about this says to just ask for a specific amount.  It gets tricky when people say things like "I will pay for the food at the reception, the invitations, etc".  I've tried and tried to side step around this, but future MIL really wants to just say WHAT they are paying for, not how much they are paying.  So, they have generously offered to pay for our reception.  Which I am VERY thankful for.
So what's the problem?  Well, our reception is where we are saving the most money because of my connections to the restaurant.  All of the other stuff is not hugely affected by our small number of attendees or this incredible deal (ceremony site fee, rentals (dance floor, cocktail tables), our attire, flights to Wisconsin, hotel room for several days, bluegrass band, rehearsal dinner, etc.).  When you add it all up, if they only pay for the reception, P and I are actually going to pay a lot more than we have the money for. 
So now I don't know what to do.  P's stepfather told us to just let him know when we needed money for things, but his mother seems pretty set on just paying for the reception.  Truth be told, we won't be having a rehearsal dinner, and we may be crashing on our friend's floors in Madison if we don't get a little more help from them.

So, what's a girl to do?  Any advice would be much appreciated!

Using our resources

While Wisconsin may not have sandy beaches, it does have a couple of perks for P and I in regards to wedding planning. And they are HUGE perks.

1. P has a florist in his family. (Feel free to cue hallelujah music.) That's right, a florist. And because they are incredibly generous human beings, they are giving us our flowers for our wedding present. When they told us this, I almost wept. This is amazing for me because when I was cutting expense categories, I was finding it easy to give up many things, but I could not bring myself to skimp on flowers. Now I am not going to take advantage of their kindness by having a floral explosion, but I do have plans for some lovely flowers.

(I adore this bouquet!)

2. The restaurant I worked at during grad school (aka, my second home) is going to shut down for our reception. We are going to get a ridiculous deal on some of the most amazing food I've ever had. I will personally know the talented chefs making our food and the servers working the event. Pretty cool.

Check out how beautiful this restaurant is:

http://www.harvest-restaurant.com/

(did I mention it has a view of the capitol? And that the linens and tableware in general is beyond what we could hope for? Ummmm, yeah.)

Are you having your wedding somewhere because of your connections/resources there?