Weddingbee boards

having received less than my fair share of the wedding planning genes, i'm kinda stumbling with my progress for my may 31st wedding.  i was very proud of myself when i realised what a 'theme' was finally.  now i want one.  i think.   anyway, that's not the point of this.

despite my lack of natural abilities, i've also got some built-in tough quesitons.  i'll try to be coherent & maybe even concise.

i live in france.  i'm marrying a french guy, but since our whole life is here, we're getting married here.  so, for my family and most of my friends, this means a big trip.  i'm doing ok on the logistics -- i've found and reserved a variety of places for people to stay, they're all profiled on our wedding website, and people will just tell me where & when they would prefer to be, and i will wave my hands around and hopefully it'll all work out.

but this theme thing:  for my half, i could be all creative with little eiffel towers or flags or passport-y looking seating cards, or airplane luggage tags, and voila!  the theme's travel or france.  and everyone drinks loads of wine and goes home happy.  but more than half of the guests (grrrr.) are frenchies.  we chose a site for the wedding where everyone has to travel (although the frenchies can come by car of course) to try and even the playing field.  but the "travel" theme for them would be a bit of a stretch.

how can i reconcile having 2 distinct categories of guests for this?  does anyone have any ideas?  i could seriously use any help.

thanks so much! 

hee hee, yeah, the hand-waving is sort of my specialty.

thanks for your comments & ideas. i think you're right on with the idea of treating the americans to cool welcome bags with typically french stuff.  (i may have to do this on the sly -- i mentioned it to mr.froggie and he said something like "yeah, we can give them tips on what to buy."  snort.  it's not that he's stingy, but we are paying for all of this ourselves, and honestly, outside of paris, the frenchies don't do weddings on the same scale as in the states.  so i'm sure he thinks the idea of welcome bags is silly.)

and i think the idea of combining the two cultures is also terrific.  i asked mr.froggie what he thinks some things "synonymous with classic American charm" could be (don't worry, i'll try to come up with some too!), but if you've got any other ideas or if anyone else does, please feel free!

thanks so much.