Wedding Breakfasts.
The English fashion of a wedding breakfast is not common here yet, but it is well to describe the proper etiquette. The gentlemen and ladies invited should be notified a fortnight in advance, and should accept or decline immediately, as it has all the formality of a dinner. On arriving at the house the gentlemen leave their hats in the hall, but ladies do not remove their bonnets. After greeting the bride and groom and the father and mother, the company talk together until breakfast is announced. Then the bride and groom go first, followed by bride’s father with groom’s mother, then groom’s father with bride’s mother, then best man with first bridesmaid, then bridesmaids with attendant gentlemen, and then the other invited guests, as the bride’s mother arranges. Coffee and tea are not usually offered, but bouillon, salads, birds, oysters, and other hot and cold dishes, ices, jellies, etc., are served at this breakfast, and finally the wedding-cake is set before the bride, who cuts a slice.
“Stand-up” breakfasts are far more commonly served, as the French say, en buffet. More guests can come and it is far less trouble to serve a collation to a number of people standing about than to furnish what is really a dinner to a number sitting down.