If people should purchase housekeeping types of items for you, they usually include gift receipts. Take them back if you have to and get what you need or want, but I really wouldn't put the word on the gift card/cash thing any other way but by word of mouth.

The reason I am posting is not to pile on with the same reasons others have given, though, it's to make another point you may not have considered. A poster a long time ago on a similar thread pointed out that a gift card shower is not much fun. Showers are fun when you get to see all the pretty packages and gifts, especially if the givers didn't all choose things off a registry. Who wants to sit and watch someone open a bunch of gift card envelopes? But you certainly can't give a shower and then not open the gifts at the party -- it would look like a party with an admission charge, not a shower, then. I guess that's why it looks so bad in an invitation to tell or even hint to guests to give cash or gift cards; the invitation says "shower," but when you think of a shower, you think about watching the honoree open gifts, not total them up.

Congratulations to you! Have fun whatever you and your friends do.

Ah, but you aren't the one having a shower--your MOH is having it FOR you.

"all the things"--by "things," do you mean: a shower, a bachelorette party, people asking you about your dress, etc.? Or do you mean pots and pans, specially chosen china, crystal, etc.?

Since gift cards are your solution, since you don't need stuff, I'm betting that you mean you want to have some time when you're the center of attention, and your friends and family fuss excitedly over you.

What a very understandable desire! I think all brides SHOULD have people fuss over them, and I'm tickled that you have a friend who wants to. That means you can enjoy it instead of wishing someone loved you enough to bother.

However, i think I'm the person who said, gift cards aren't much fun at a shower.

So.....register for gifts! Give your hostess & other friends some ideas!

Or, let them pick a theme that will influence gifts (the way an "around the clock" shower does). Trust your friends and family to know that you have an established household. And enjoy the surprise that comes each time you open the present. (that's part of the fun of showers, and Christmas--the surprise. Sure, you'll get some "misses," but that's part of the fun, to me)

Maybe it would be nice to choose a china pattern, and end up with really nice things that remind you of that time every time you serve a special dinner.

Or maybe it would be nice to get fresh things, given with great love behind them. New sheets, in a new color scheme to mark a new time in your lovelife?

So, just let your friends throw any kind of shower they want--let even the theme be their gift to you, and bask in their attention.

And, stop trying to micromanage the guests at your shower or wedding.

"If the host of the shower is called for ideas they can say you're all set and suggest a gift card"
This seems even ruder, actually--if you're all set, then why is she throwing a shower for you? Why not a tea or luncheon?

I think you should register for at least a few things, and you should give your considerate hostess a list of ideas she can pass on if asked--that your decorating style is modern or country or Victorian, what color your bedroom is and whether you have a queen-size bed, how big your dining-room table is, whether your towels are starting to wear out, or that you really want to concentrate on the garden next year and would love plants from the nursery, or power tools.

what does it mean that it's an "out-of-state shower"--you'll have to travel TO the shower? There's a theme--a shoebox shower. Your hostess can point out that you'll have to travel back w/ the presents, and that it would be fun if each item they give you would fit inside a shoe box. Or that the total accumulation of them fits inside a shoebox, or something. They may think of gift cards on their own then, or maybe they'll buy you a neat gadget, or something.