I am cheap, my fiance on the other hand... I'm trying to convince her to go the park route. She's currently trying to find that one perfect place that has everything and costs nothing. Hopefully she'll find some perspective in her search.
I don't know how to help you there. The park that I got married in was donated by the Busch family as it used to be one of their mansions. That gave it a lot of architectural flavor that a normal park won't have. If you're looking for a park you might look for something like that to perk up the park for your spouse. I linked a picture of where I was married in my original comment. That's the mansion in the background and I got married in front of the fountain.
She loves the woods and there are some historic towns in the foothills of NC that have been preserved for some 150 years. I'm thinking I could corner one of those, place a few tents, and probably be good. The other side of it is that this is the first really big project we've worked on together, so it's more about finding that middle ground than anything else.