Lol, maybe it's just my eyes seeing red where it should be brown. Debbie did say it has pretty foliage so that's good enough for me. Hi Kim, nice to meet a fellow Texan. Glad to hear yours are doing so well.Maybe we can compare notes on The Bride when I get mine. Yes, all the Clematis I've gotten from Debbie are amazing. My Blue Angel that is new from her is covered with blooms from top to bottom. Karen

I'm glad John foumd someone new, and she apparently is more mentally stable than the runaway bride. I wish them all the best.

If the bride's parents are the hosts of the wedding, it is nice to hear from one of them to thank everyone for coming to share their special day. Then say something about the lovely couple, either a special memory, or what the future promises, or some family story. I remember the story my DH planned to share -- when we knew this was a serious romance. DD came home from San Francisco for Thanksgiving to tell us about this young man she had met in September. She told the story of her group bar hopping in the city one night and meeting up with other friends. She discovered that everyone else had had their dinner, but she had not. She was worried how to get some food as the bar did not serve food, so our now son-in-law suggested they go down the street and get her a pizza. But she was worried that everyone else would hop on to the next bar, and he assured her that they would still be there when they got back. So there they sat at the pizza parlor at a table just large enough to hold the pizza pan and not her drink. Thus he held her coke for her as she ate her pizza and sipped the coke. I knew as soon as I heard this story that this was her Mr. Wonderful. Then the groom's father got up and told a darling story about his son as a boy -- how he was good at catching frogs and none ever got away from him. He tied it into catching a wonderful girl.

I had the same dilemma. My daughter moved from NJ to California in January and we needed to get creative as far as planning her shower. Because she had to fly in from California the shower was brunch style on Saturday and her bridesmaids and friends had her bachelorette party that night. When I was researching proper etiquette on showers and how to handle the gifts, I found this board. I started to panic when I read some of the responses about not having a shower if the guests can't bring their gifts, or the pay $100 of dollars to ship. The best one was to return all the gifts and re-buy them. Well we didn't do any of that and the guests loved what we did... so here it goes. I wanted to post so anyone else who reads this board can have a good option. On the invitation we wrote: To make _______'s flight home easier, if purchasing a gift, please ship directly to: >>>>> and we put the brides address. For fun!! Wrap a photo or token of the gift you sent to open at the shower. Note: Most stores that would be on a registry offer free shipping. A lot of people teamed up and put their orders together to qualify for free shipping . The bride then set all the packages aside as they got delivered before the shower and she promised not to open. At the shower, when it came time to open presents, it was so much fun to see how creative people were. My sister in-law bought the silverware and wrapped up a set of silver plastic ware and had photos of the actual set. Everyone got to see all the beautiful gifts, and it was fun. At the end of the shower so many people commented that it was the best shower they have been too. They got to see the surprised look on the brides face when opening the gifts. When the shower was over, we were able to pack up all the tokens and smaller gifts into her luggage and I gave her a shopping tote to carry onto the airplane for what wouldn't fit. Something else we did: the groom was not able to fly out that weekend...so we had video clips of him with a welcome and then answering questions about the bride. After each question the bride would give her answer and then we would play his. This was a hit. It took about 12-15 minutes and everyone was laughing at the funny stories. Don't be afraid to throw a shower for an out of state bride. If you only invite close family and friends, they will not mind shipping their gifts. I know if I went through the trouble of shipping a gift to myself, bringing it to a shower, to find out that it was returned, I think I would be upset that the bride and mother had to go through all that trouble, when most times it is free shipping. Those people that did not want to ship a gift ahead of time, purchased gift cards or gave a check. It was a beautiful shower and the bride beamed from beginning to end... She is now back home and just started opening all of the gifts with her husband to be. This worked out perfect and we did not offend anyone. Good luck!!