Oh Wendy - How awful!! From what I understand, the Bridal Veil Spirea blooms in the early part of the season, and so blooms on year old wood. If that's the case, then I feel for you. They are such pretty shrubs. Farfaraway - You are not off key in suggesting that weeds are prefered by bunnies. My DM has gorgeous gardens. Surrounding these gardens are lots of Dandelions. At first glance, when you see the wild rabbits, it looks like they are heading straight for her gardens, but they always stop at the edges and eat away at the dandelions and never go in. The grandkids love to see them! They found the entrance to the burrows last year and now will sit patiently at a distance to see them come out on Sunday mornings in the summer. And, yes, everyone, they do make good stews and meat pies!

Plant them and water well. Stringy roots are all you need.

here's a link to a few wedding items - the hankie, garter, bag, etc. She could keep your garter and throw another if they are planning to do the traditional. At my son's wedding, no garter and no flowers were thrown. Also no wedding cake but assorted pastries to represent who they are - a pecan tart for her southern roots (NC), a cannoli for his Italian roots and a small key lime pie since they got married in Florida. An edging for her veil might be OK but brides may be fussy -- my DIL did not even use a veil, not interested, only a tiara! Hint around to see what she might be interested in before you invest time in making something she wouldn't use. Here is a link that might be useful: Crochet Pattern Central

I agree that bridal illusion is what you want. (I got mine at Jo-Ann's.) Make sure you get the right color too...white vs. ivory will make a huge difference depending on the color of the dress. You will also need to experiment with stabilizers. For the veil I made, I ended up using a wash away stabilizer, though they also make a tear- away stabilizer. In fact, buy extra and practice until you are comfortable with the process and results so that when it comes to the real veil, you will be confident in what you are doing. If you are sewing on a lace with a straight edge, then I would suggest you cut the veil larger, mark with disappearing ink where you want to sew on the lace, zig zag over the straight edge of the lace with invisible thread (monofilament), then carefully trim the excess illusion away from underneath the lace (don't cut the lace or the stitching) and you are done. (Practice first using regular thread so you can see where you stitches are going.) If instead the lace is shaped, then you will need to practice doing machine applique with the lace as you will need to stitch the lace down all along the shaped edge. (If you've not seen free motion quilting, take a look at you tube to see how it's done...it's a very easy and relaxed motion that you use as you control the stitch length and placement rather than the feed dogs.) I would still use a zig zag stitch and be careful with placement of the stitches at inside and outside corners so the corner is tacked down. Use regular contrasting thread at first so you can see what you are doing, and you will want to drop the feed dogs on your machine so you are able to move the fabric as you wish. You may find you can do ok with pinning the sandwich (stabilizer, then illusion, then lace on top...sometimes you may need stabilizer on top and bottom, depending on the materials), but if not, then get a large embroidery hoop and try hooping it all together to hold the fabric firmer and to give you something to hang onto while you are sewing. (I was working on smaller pieces and found hooping gave me more control.) When you are ready and are comfortable with what you are doing, then switch to the invisible thread and you'll be amazed at how good it looks. Again you will need to trim away the excess carefully, once your lace is attached. I'm not seeing the pic you linked above....