Personally I prefer self cater to hotel - like the ability to get a cup of team without all the faff and expense of room service. Last year I was at the Dorint near Messeplatz. All the service of a Premier Inn for the price of the Hilton.
Cheers,
Nick
If you do want to stay at random hotels, I would suggest a site such as
http://www.deindeal.ch/de# it's also in french. You can find great deals often on hotel room clearouts specific to Switzerland.
I presume since you are attending a wedding it will probably be in the spring time or summer. Switzerland can have rain throughout the summer so be prepared to plan for things that are not solely dependent on warm clear blue skies.
I have traveled to many places around the world, and Switzerland is not the most expensive. It's about your budget naturally and also trying to think like a local that will get you the best experience and more affordable one. Switzerland, is a very pic nic back pack lunch orientated country. There are many sites that allow for outdoor BBQing, and I think the landscape begs that you take a blanket and bring the food to it. Rather then constantly being crammed into restaurants without a view. So read up on dried and smoked sausages, cheese, brined vegetables, re sealable beer, and bread. If you want to enjoy a view, remember, no matter what they say, the quality of the food normally does not match what you are seeing. So you pay that price.
Zurich has a few restaurants for this, like Uto Kulm, Halbinsel Au, Clouds, and some other place I can't remember. But you can get views with your Cordon Bleu elsewhere as well.
The kinds of things you can do that aren't the first page of the travel books, but is part of the Swiss experience can be the following...Klosters(Abbeys) often times have open house markets for the sale of wine, cheese and anything else they make. There is an island, Lutzelau, in lake Zurich that has a restaurant and an abbey that produces wine there and can be toured as I remember.
Not far away in Hurden there is a small fishing port/not really village, that you can buy fresh fish from the lake. Friday morning Zurich has itself it's open market.
In Wadenswil, there is a brewery restaurant. For some reason it seems no one ever knows this, but they have been doing it for atleast 9 years, for lunch http://www.waedenswiler.ch/menukarte.html you can take a lunch menu for 22.90, which includes all you can drink beer(and soft drinks but whatever). It goes on until Happy Hour starts, which is still good beer specials. Rapperswil holds a castle, with yes, more wine buying and tasting. It's old part, like Zug is beautiful. Also in the right season you can go cherry picking around Zug and well almost anywhere in Switzerland.
I can name more activities to do, but I have to go to sleep. Taking my own kids out to take advantage of some snow. But please do give more details of what you might want to do, and perhaps others from their parts of the country can make suggestions as well.