With Local Color

So many wedding guests shuttle in and out of a place or region without ever really seeing it. Give your guests a sense of the place that they've traveled to by giving them a gift with regional significance. Have a bunch of Yankees coming down South? Fill a burlap sack with grits, corn bread mix, some homemade jam and a book on "How to Talk Southern." Getting married in the Pacific NorthWest? Offer your guests a basket of jams created with the regions unusually wild berries. Getting married in Florida? How about a big brimming basket of oranges with a nice note from you? The possibilities are endless. And there are great ideas in specialty food stores, state-themed gifts shops, and more. Still at a loss? Try looking up all of your state's official items on the web. Go to a search engine and type in your state name and the words "state bird flower." You'll usually get back the list of all your state's revered symbols.

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