Dress - smart casual. Goth is OK but preferably not Goth with holes, unless the holes are held together with coordinated gold or silver safety pins. Tell your daughter "dressy Goth" is OK.
I used to wear fishnet stockings to church back in the late 60s.
As for what to take - you don't need to be a good cook in order to have some good recipes. And they don't need to be printed out, they can be a computer file.
Over the years I have got together family favourite recipes as well as ones I've either found myself or enjoyed at a friend's. I put them all together in a computer file and give each kid a copy when they leave home. I've included suggestions on shopping, budgetting etc. I even have a travel version (what to take when you're on holidays but still have to prepare meals).
Some things I've done for wedding presents -
1) I put together a basket of kitchen utensils - wooden spoon, spatulas, vegetable peeler, zester - anything small, cute and interesting. Practical things such as a ball of kitchen string, some kitchen scissors. Some kitchen cloths, maybe some of those mitts or microfibre cloths. You can pick up these individual things for a fraction of a dollar, that's why nobody ever gives them as gifts - they're too cheap individually. Wrap it all up in a teatowel. You could get a lovely gift together of the sort of tings they probably WON'T get, spending under $10.
2) Or a basket of "spoil yourselves" goodies, a lot of which you can make yourself. I did this for difficult child 1 & daughter in law, I gave them the basket as they drove off on their honeymoon. Probably not suitable for a bridal SHOWER, this is more the sort of last-minute thing you shove at the happy couple so they can have a fun honeymoon. I put in a mini-bottle of champagne, two plastic champagne flutes, a small hand-towel or tea-towel (handy on picnics), a small box of chocolates. I made some special heart-shaped biscuits for difficult child 1 & daughter in law to eat while driving. Also some massage oil for when they got to their destination, it had been a stressful day. Do it up prettily, make it look romantic. These baskets usually sell for $50 or more, you can put one together for a fraction of that price.
3) The massage oil - that alone could be a useful and valued gift. Find an attractive bottle in your cupboard. Get someone to decorate it - glass paint is great but you can also paint something onto white paper then use clear contact to stick it to the bottle. I also make sure I include information on what is in the bottle - vegetable oil, some essential oil (or scented oil). For the base oil, you can use olive oil but if you have it or can get it, a nut oil of some kind is even better. For the fragrance, use your nose to find something but the purpose of this oil is to help them relax so go for rose and/or lavender. Lavender is an inexpensive essential oil you can often get in the supermarket, it's a good choice. Don't use too much - it's not a matter of being stingy, too much makes your eyes water. A massage oil needs to be mild in intensity. So to about 80 ml of vegetable oil, try about 2 ml of lavender oil. Adjust a little if you need to, but wait a few hours, your nose can get 'tired' and not recognise the strength of what you made up, it's easy to add too much.
If you do a lavender oil massage blend (which is a good choice also because it's more unisex than rose) then use blue or mauve colours in your hand-painted label. Tie a lavender ribbon to the neck of the bottle (I use cheap curling ribbon).
4) You can do this as well, or put it into a care basket - a bottle of skin scrub. Again, use lavender oil to scent it (especially if you're also giving them massage oil). Lemon is a good oil to use too.
For the base - olive oil is best here but if you've got sweet almond oil or macadamia oil that you're happy to use, it is great! But I use olive oil, I'm very happy with it.
The mix - salt (not rock salk, but cheap cooking salt nevertheless). Pour over olive oil plus lavender oil in the same proportions as the massage oil. Make sure you have about 1 cm of oil over the top of the salt in the jar. If you have a small plastic spoon (the sort of thing shops give you to eat a serve of ice cream or yogurt) put it inside the jar. You want a spoon which will hold about quarter of a teaspoon.
Decorate the jar but include the instructions - "to use - put a small spoonful into your hands. Scrub your skin with it. Rinse off with warm water then blot dry with a cloth. Your skin will feel clean and smooth."
It's wonderful to use - at first you think, "Oh this is awful, my skin feels so greasy," but after you blot dry with a cloth, the faint trace left behind is just enough to compensate for the scraping you gave your skin to get it clean.
The recommendation is to not use it on your face, but I do.
It contains no artificial additives or preservatives. I've used it in the shower (I have a lavender jar there) and I have a tangerine/jasmine jar in the kitchen. husband has used it to clean ingrained garage grease off his hands (works like Solvol) but I also have used it after a swim at the beach when my skin feels dry and damaged.
I've priced out this stuff in the stores - similar products cost $50 a jar or more, for something I can make for under $1. And I know what has gone into mine! I've studied the ingredients list of the commercial expensive stuff and apart from preservatives, there is nothing in it that I haven't also put in mine.
Also, you can make it in seconds.
I also do a baby massage oil (similar to above) but I use a lot less essential oil and prefer to use sweet almond oil or jojoba for the base oil. I've used rose oil plus sandalwood as the scent because it is also very good for sensitive skin or inflamed skin, Great to prevent nappy rash and also soothe a baby's delicate skin.
And again, the final touch is how you decorate the bottle. I get a square of paper, write on the information thn do a miniatire painting of garden all around the words, using water colours or acrylics. Then I stick the label down, covering it completely, with clear contact. If you don't completely cover it then your label risks tearing off and looking amateurish. But a good cover - it looks absolutely wonderful and very special.
The sort of bottle to use - it needs to have a tight screw cap if you're going to tip it upside down and have it not leak. But if you want someting pretty to sit on the shelf and it won't be needing to travel, then find a bottle with a plastic seal and hollow lid (like Moccona coffee jars). You can carefully snap off the plastic jar seal from the rest of the glass lid and fill the hollow glass lid with pot pourri or something else pretty. I have used a silk flower from a cheap bouquet I bought ages ago (I bought it cheap because it was badly put together, flowers were falling off - whhich suited me). If you have something like that which has lost a couple of flowers or leaves, then rip off another few and stuff them (prettily) inside the glass lid then snap the plastic seal back on. Or you could make a tissue-paper flower and put that inside the glass lid. Or confetti, or glitter.
Anyway, there's some cheap ideas for you.
And of course, you have to make some for yourself so you can test it, don't you?
Marg
) tomorrow. We are invited.
