Part 88

If only twenty-five or thirty guests are present the wedding breakfast is preferably served at small tables. The clergyman and his wife, who should always be invited, are seated at the bride's table. So also the maid-of-honor, the best man, the ushers, and the parents of the pair, with sisters and brothers if convenient. Or, the bride's table may be reserved strictly for the bridal party.

The bride may cut her own cake if she chooses, or the wedding cake may be dispensed in boxes as at the reception following a church wedding.

The departure of the newly wedded pair is on the order already indicated.

After the Wedding.--It may be said here that the "horse play"--for it is nothing else--sometimes indulged in as "an after clap" to a wedding, in which practical jokes are played on the pair, is not only unkind and ill-bred, but in most execrable taste. To placard the luggage "Just married;" to tie white ribbons on it and the carriage in which they are driven away; to substitute a suitcase packed with the things a man doesn't want on his journey for one containing what he does, is not at all "smart."

Why should some coarse, ill-bred persons, whether they have or have not been favored with invitations, strive to embarrass and make uncomfortable those to whom the situation is already sufficiently trying? Why, after so much pains and expense have been employed to make the occasion beautiful and impressive, should the "practical joker" take it upon himself to spoil it all by an ill-timed "pleasantry" which is the acme of rudeness and discourtesy? It is a curious character that can enjoy perpetrating what are really outrages upon other people's sensibilities.

Wedding Gifts.--Very soon after the wedding invitations are out the presents begin to pour in. The fashion of gift giving on such an occasion is not as prevalent as at one time; it was overdone, carried beyond the limits of good taste, and of course a reaction was inevitable. Some men profess to share the feeling of the Scandinavian immigrant who was so deeply affronted at the offerings made by his bride's friends--as if he were not able to furnish his home with the necessary articles--that in his Berserker rage he was with difficulty restrained from casting gifts and donors together into the street.

Generally speaking, only relatives and intimate friends send gifts, though there is no interdict as regards others who may wish to testify to their interest in the bride in this way. An ostentatious gift from a person not in the family is in bad taste. The words "No presents" on wedding invitations are in the worst possible form.

An invitation to a church wedding and not to the reception precludes the necessity of making a gift; indeed, it would be thought rather "pushing" to send one.

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What to Give.--The flat silver is generally given by the bride's family. In order to avoid duplicates, it is best for the friends and relatives to consult together in regard to their gifts. It is not thought good form to offer articles of wearing apparel. Anything the bride's immediate family has to offer in this line is best included in the trousseau. Cut glass, silver, bric-a-brac, napery, books, pictures, fans, rugs, clocks, handsome chairs and tables, are things that may be chosen with propriety.

The question of the correct form of marking silver and napery often comes up. The rule is to have it engraved with the initials of the bride's maiden name--not the single initial of her family name, as is sometimes ignorantly done--because it is her own private property. If a wife dies, the silver bearing her name is packed away for the future use of her child, especially if it is a girl. The second wife would be forbidden by good taste and convention, from using the first wife's silver.

Acknowledgments.--Wedding gifts are usually packed where they are bought, and sent direct from the shops. The card of the donor is enclosed, within a tiny envelope. It is a rule that the wedding gift must be acknowledged immediately, before the marriage, and by a personal note from the bride. This is not always possible, but the note should be written at the earliest moment the bride's engagements will permit. Such notes are always in the first person, and should be pleasant and cordial. The writer must be careful to render thanks for the article sent. Amusing mistakes sometimes happen; thus a lady who had sent a pair of handsome candlesticks was mystified by expressions of gratitude for a silver berry spoon she had not sent.

A cordial form of acknowledging a gift is this:

12 Canton Avenue. My Dear Mrs. Bruce: The beautiful cut glass vase sent by you and Mr. Bruce has just arrived, and I hasten to thank you most sincerely for your kind thought of me. It will be a constant reminder of your goodness to Mr. Waters and myself, and a most lovely ornament to our new home. Gratefully yours, Marion Moore. July tenth, nineteen hundred and nine.

The wedding gifts may or may not be displayed, according to the personal preference of the bride. They are commonly shown to intimate friends. A room is given up to their display. Cards are to be removed.

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Wedding Decorations.--At a church wedding it is customary, and wisest, to put the matter of decorating the church and house into the hands of a florist, who can furnish the palms and others plants required for the chancel, and carry out any color scheme desired. He has the paraphernalia requisite to effective disposition of flowers. Usually large clusters of foliage and flowers, ribbon tied, are attached to the pews reserved for the relatives; often they are arranged the entire length of the aisle, The mantels in the house are banked with flowers, southern smilax is used in profusion, and flowers are arranged upon the tables at which the supper is served.

At a church wedding in the country the bride's friends must come to the rescue, and their gardens be robbed to beautify church and home. Flowers may be sought in the fields. Large jars of daisies, wild ferns, tall grasses, autumn tinted boughs, or in the blooming season, boughs of fruit trees, can be used most effectively. At one pretty home wedding the decorations were boughs of the wild crab-apple in bloom, pink and pretty, and kept so by having the stems inserted in bottles of water, suspended by wires and concealed by other foliage. A large screen sometimes forms a background for the bridal party. If covered with wire netting flowers can be very easily attached.

Walls are not festooned; "wedding bells" and canopies are out of date. The most approved setting is tall palms, ferns on standards concealed by a lower grouping, with a few potted plants in bloom to relieve the sombreness of the green. Large flowers like lilies, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and peonies are most effective. Tulips are often employed at a spring wedding. One little country girl made good use of ordinary field clover in decorating her home for her marriage.

After a wedding, the flowers are often sent to the hospitals, or to those who are known to be ill, at the request of the bride.

THE SIMPLEST OF WEDDINGS.

Now, although we have told how the church wedding and the ordinary home wedding are conducted, it does not follow that one may not have a much simpler and yet a pretty wedding, with less "pomp and circumstance" and consequent expense.

Wherever a girl has a home, she should be married from it. This is her due, as "daughter of the house."

She may make the simplest possible preparations; may be married in her best dress, not new for the occasion. She may omit all attendants, and invite less than half a dozen of her friends; she may receive them herself and at the appointed hour simply stand up and be married to a blushing young man in a business suit, and afterwards cut her own cake, and then proceed to her new home, which may be a little flat or a cottage. But she should have the ceremony performed by a clergyman in her father's house.

If she has no parents, no home, merely a room in a boarding house, she and her affianced may go to a clergyman's house and be married there. The church and the law should sanction the rite; therefore she will not permit herself to be married by a magistrate or a justice of the peace.

As for "sneaking off" and being married without the knowledge of one's parents, this is both disrespectful and unkind--a poor return for their care of her.

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WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES.

The fashion of celebrating a succession of wedding anniversaries has passed its high tide and is on the wane. Nevertheless, the custom is not out, by any means. The tenth, twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries, known as the tin, silver, and golden, are those most frequently observed.

The first anniversary of the wedding day gives occasion for a paper wedding; the second is cotton; the third leather. The fourth is omitted; the fifth is the wooden wedding; next to be observed is the tin, celebrating the close of the first decade. The next skip is to the china, when twenty years have elapsed; and the quarter century of wedded happiness is recognized in the silver wedding.

The wooden and tin weddings are occasions of great hilarity, and mean a general frolic. The former began years ago with the gift of a rolling-pin and a step-ladder. The gifts are of those practical, useful articles that replenish the kitchen, though handsome gifts are of course easily selected. Carved wooden boxes, handsome picture frames, articles of furniture, are at the service of those who choose to pay their price.

Invitations to a wooden wedding are sometimes written or printed on birch bark or thin strips of wood, or are engraved on cards which imitate wood in appearance. The refreshments have been served on wooden plates procured from the grocer. So far as possible the wooden idea is carried out.

Tin Weddings.--Gifts for the tin wedding are of course in that material, and there is a wide range of choice. The tinsmith is often called upon to manufacture fantastic articles, anything to raise a laugh. Thus one couple were adorned, the wife with a set of tin curls, the man with a tin hat. A tin purse enclosing a check for "tin" was once presented to a tin bride on the occasion of her tin wedding. The freakish fancy of one's friends is generally much in evidence at a tin wedding. As at the wooden wedding, the bride cuts a wedding cake decorated with a monogram formed of the initials of her own and her husband's name, and the year of the wedding and of its anniversary. Refreshments may be served from tin dishes, and the guests provided with tin plates.

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The Silver Wedding.--Cards for a silver wedding are printed in silver, or in black on silvered cards--the former being in better taste. The form--which may be used for all with the variation of but one word--that designating the nature of the anniversary, is as follows:

1885 Mr. and Mrs. Smith 1910 request the pleasure of your company on Thursday, February the twenty-fourth, at eight o'clock. Silver Wedding. George Smith Anna Hall

As the couple who celebrate are generally in the prime of life, and their friends of about the same age, a silver wedding is usually a very enjoyable function. The many beautiful articles now made in silver afford a wide range of choice in the way of gifts, both valuable and in those inexpensive trifles that please everybody because so artistic. Silverware is marked with the initials of the married pair, often enclosed in a true lover's knot. Toilet articles, pomade jars, silver jewelry, spoons, silver parasol and umbrella handles, picture frames in silver, rings and bracelets, besides the manifold pieces for table use, offer a wide individual range in choice and price.

The supper at a silver wedding is quite elaborate. The bride that was cuts a wedding cake in which a silver piece is baked; the person who gets it being expected to live to celebrate his or her silver wedding. Speeches are made, often an original poem read, and not infrequently the health of the pair pledged in a glass of wine.

Golden Weddings--Occasions for the celebration of fifty years of union are much rarer than any other. Nor are they wholly joyful. The aged couple are looking from "life's west windows" at a fast declining sun. A few short years and it must set for them. The festivities are usually planned and carried out by their descendants, who so far as possible summon to the celebration the friends of "Auld lang syne," the clergyman who performed the ceremony and any of the bridal party yet alive, and the dearest friends of the present. Invitations in the conventional form are printed in gold letters; often a monogram formed of intertwined initials is placed between and a little above the years at the top of the invitation. The wedding cake has a yellow frosting, or if in white, the monogram and the years--1860-1910--are in yellow to represent gold.

Gifts in this precious metal are naturally circumscribed, but a gold coin is apropos, particularly if Fortune has been chary of her favors. In the seventh and eighth decade people have small use for bijouterie.

A golden wedding must be a sad anniversary to the participants. When they were wedded, they were looking forward, joyously; now they recall the past, its losses and trials and misfortunes. They remember the children who are dead, or far away; or the prosperity once theirs, but now fled. Few old folks would care to celebrate their golden wedding; it is usually some well-meaning grandchild who sees in it "an occasion." Often, too, the excitement, the fatigue, the unusual strain on mind and body, result in illness which sometimes proves fatal.

The Courtesies of the Occasion.--There is no formal etiquette for any of these anniversaries. Friends, as they arrive, are greeted by members of the family; then, in the case of the elderly celebrants, are conducted to them as they sit side by side, and presented. Failing eyesight and dulled ears demand this. The congratulations are offered, and good wishes for the future. If any speeches are made, they should be brief, that neither the old couple or their guests be over-fatigued. The stay should be brief.

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Gifts.--Gifts for the anniversary wedding are sometimes sent the day previous, sometimes carried in person. Anything fantastic is generally presented at the gathering, to contribute to its hilarity. The silver wedding gifts are nearly always sent in advance, and are displayed on a table, the cards of the donor usually being left on them. The recipients are to tender their thanks in person or by note.

Every effort should be made to have these festivities joyous. Especially should the wife subdue her emotion if the review of the years since her bona fide wedding day have seen the loss of beloved children. She must stifle her sad recollections for the sake of her guests.

The members of the bridal party, the more honored guests at the first wedding, the clergyman who officiated, are sought as welcome guests at the anniversary. The bride that was wears something she wore on the first occasion. If the wedding dress and the bridegroom's suit have been preserved they are worn--and wonderfully quaint they often look, so great the change in fashion.

CHRISTENING CEREMONIES.

"Our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste the moment they take fire." --Young.

The arrival of the stork with the new baby is an event of vast family interest, especially if it is the first visit of the bird to the domicile. In America it is not customary to announce a birth in the newspapers, as is often done in England, especially among the nobility. The personal friends of the parents receive the visiting card of both, or of the mother only, to which is attached a small card bearing the baby's full name and the date of his arrival. These are enclosed in an envelope, this again in an outer one, and mailed.

It is proper for those thus notified to call at an early date to inquire as to the well-being of mother and babe. As it is not customary for the mother to receive any but a very few of her nearest relatives under at least three weeks, callers should not be expected to see her, but are to leave cards. A note of congratulation is often sent instead of calling, and offers to the ingenious and witty an excellent chance for the display of delicate pleasantry. Thus it is entirely proper to address the note to the baby, and congratulate him on having chosen such charming parents, and such a lovely home. Flowers are not infrequently sent to the mother, and little gifts--soft booties, little gold pins for sleeve and neck, little crocheted or knitted sacks, or dainty bibs--to the baby.

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The Ceremony.--The baby is usually christened when it is six or eight weeks old. Clergymen prefer this should be done at the church, and generally arrange to perform several baptisms at the same time--Children's Day being a favorite time. Otherwise, the christening usually takes place after the congregation is dismissed at the conclusion of a service. Only those interested and a few specially invited friends remain for it. There is no objection, however, to having a child christened at home, when the affair is made one of more festivity.

Most young married people prefer to have the clergyman who married them christen their first baby, when practicable.

Sponsors.--The baby's sponsors are chosen, by the parents' agreement, from among their relatives and close friends, almost always those of their own communion. The request is preferred verbally or by personal notes. A boy has a godmother and two godfathers; a girl two godmothers and a godfather. Occasionally this rule is broken and a godmother alone chosen for a girl, and one godfather for a boy. Godparents are supposed to stand in a more intimate relation to their godchildren than to others, and to take a more personal interest in them, especially in case of the parents' death. It is a serious relation, involving a certain religious responsibility, and is not to be lightly entered into.

The godparents are expected to make christening gifts to the child on his baptismal day. They are usually in the form of silver cups, porringers, silver spoons, forks, etc.; these should be solid, never plated ware. If the babe is named for one of its godparents, the latter is expected to do something handsome in the way of a christening gift. Sometimes a bank account is opened in the child's name, the sum deposited being left at interest until he becomes of age.

Church Christenings.--At a church christening, the babe is dressed in its handsomest robe and cap. Formerly the robes were very long and miracles of lace and embroidery; at present the finest of linen lawn or batiste, with a little real lace at neck and sleeves, and a bit of fine French embroidery, is thought in better taste, even in the case of the very wealthy. And many a blessed baby is given his name in a simple little lawn robe with no embellishment beyond a little tucking--done by the mother's own hands, perhaps.

The nurse carries the child into the church. Sponsors and parents group themselves around the font, which is often decorated with white flowers. The godmother has the privilege of holding the babe until it is time to lay him in the clergyman's arms, the cap having been removed. The parents make the responses; after the naming the godmother takes the little one again, holding him until the close of the service. She should not wipe away any of the water placed on the child's head. A good baby is expected not to cry during the ceremony, and one advantage of an early christening is that the little fellow is less liable to be alarmed at strange surroundings.

The same forms are observed at a home christening, the hour being usually in the afternoon.

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A luncheon to which the clergyman and the christening party, and a few friends if desired, are invited, customarily follows the church ceremony--unless several children of other families are baptized at the same time--and always follows the home christening. It is not unusual to make some recognition of a clergyman's services at a church christening, and always is in order at the home rite, though it is not expected as a clergyman counts on his wedding fee.

If church or house is decorated for a christening, white flowers only are employed, in conjunction with palms and ferns to relieve them. White lilies are particularly beautiful. The table is adorned with white flowers; the cakes and bonbons are white. Any desired refreshments may be served, those for afternoon tea being suitable. That old-fashioned beverage known as caudle is never served at any other time. It is dispensed in bouillon cups.

MOURNING ETIQUETTE.

Conduct of Funerals--

So brief the span between our birth and death that the etiquette of burial may fittingly follow that of the christening ceremony. It might be supposed that the funeral, especially the private, could be conducted without formality. But informality often means disorder, and simplicity without order is confusion. There is no time where lack of order and system so grate on one's nerves as at a funeral. The less "fuss" on such an occasion the better, and for that reason, the routine of meals should go on as usual, though no one seems to have the heart to eat them. Still, it is in a way a comfort to most people to feel the chain of accustomed habit; it brings a trifling sense of relief.

Save in the case of a person who has been prominent in the public eye, there is no excuse, or reason, for any but a private funeral. Time was when not to hasten to the house of death was thought unkind; not to attend the funeral of an acquaintance a mark of disrespect. We have changed all that. We do not expect the uninvited to attend our weddings and receptions, why should they come at times of much more intimate and personal emotion--those times when we can hardly endure the words and presence of those we love best? What the sensitive have endured at the hands--or tongues--of well-meaning but clumsy sympathizers--not infrequently curious as well as sympathetic--only those who have suffered can relate. In addition to the natural grief experienced, the members of the family are usually worn out with nights of watching and days of anxiety; it is a fresh strain to be obliged to see people, relate sick-room details and listen to stereotyped condolences.

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The Undertaker.--Cases are rare where there is not some "next friend" who is competent to see the undertaker, and arrange details with him. In fact, the undertaker may well be put in charge. He should be competent and experienced. A clumsy, fussy undertaker is an affliction.

The undertaker will obtain the physician's certificate as to the cause of death, without which in many cities a burial permit cannot be issued. He will secure the necessary permit, see to the preparation of the grave, and the purchase of a lot if necessary, arrange the house for the funeral, furnish the bearers, and secure the requisite number of carriages; and, before the family returns from the cemetery, have the funeral paraphernalia out of the house, so that the maids or whoever is left in charge can restore the rooms to their wonted order. Everything possible is done to spare the grief-stricken.