Jodi...BB for me is one of the most delicate flowered varieties. Very feminine...thus the name. KVB had them but are already sold out. Soultan...Of the hundreds of pics I have taken of my flowers, I am kinda getting bored of the usual front, close-up, group pic I get of the ammies. Now that they are blooming one at a time, I get to appreciate each flower better. This will be hard to do in spring when I would have at least a dozen blooming at the same time. It is amazing how every flower has it's own characteristic or a story to tell. :-) Pax...I like natural backgrounds too. But I have no pretty backgrounds right now. The garden outside is bare and the trees leafless. The background that I am using right now are cheap poster boards...3 for $1. They hide the clutter inside my house too...lol! In a way, this pics are still natural. Nothing is altered. Just me, the flower and the camera...

I don't recall what night it was but she was still missing when I went to bed. I got up about 4:30AM because my stomach was hurting. I took some medicine and settled into my recliner for the pain to ease. I turned on the TV and there was the news that she had been in touch with her family and was okay. I hate to be negative all the time but from recent news stories of missing people I had expected the worse. I got a good feeling. I knew she would be criticized for everything under the sun but it just doesn't matter. What matters is that she is okay. I just don't care that she may have done this by design; nerves; or whatever. I do care that the story has a relatively happy ending. I, personally, wish the best for her whether she marries; takes off again but lets people know; or makes a mint selling her story. Gene

Thanks for the words of (mostly) support. Here's an update: I decided to go to the source for information. I sent an email to the Archdiocese of Phila asking what the facts are on this issue. The next day I got back what I believe was a 'form letter email' if you will. It basically stated that at present there is no rule either way on the wedding procession and that there will not be until new Marriage Rite (from the Vatican) is published in english. I sent a follow up on an unanswered question - can an individual parish pastor decide on his own to forbid the father escorting his daughter - if that is her desire? I also asked if this practice is 'not a part of the Marriage Rite' in the future, will there be any wiggle room that would let the father and daughter walk together; or would it be a sin or invalidate the ceremony? I got no response for several days. Since the original query was answered so promptly, I decided that in case I was now being ignored, that I would resend the same email with a header ( second request, third request, etc.) every day until I heard from them. Well, after a week, I got a response, a personal one this time. The Marriage Rite is published with individual differences in different countries according to local practices / customs. Again, there is no current policy addressing who walks with whom; walking with my daughter is no sin and it would not invalidate the ceremony even after the Marriage Rite is published. I gave a copy of the emailed response to a friend of my wife. Her daughter is going through the same thing. It's my hope that she shoves the email right under my pastor's nose and calls him out on it, but I don't know how confrontational she is.

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!!