At a home wedding the bride enters the room on the arm of her father. With a short dress she would not wear a veil.
The wearing of gloves at an informal wedding is entirely a matter of taste. Recently at several large weddings they were omitted by the entire bridal party.
The prettiest way to make an aisle for the bridal party at a house wedding is for four children to enter the room where the ceremony will be, just before the bridal party comes in, and separate the guests into two groups by stretching two pieces of white ribbon the length of the room. A child stands at each end of the two pieces of ribbon, holding it while the bridal party walks up between them, and during the service. Ushers may hold the ribbons instead of the children, or the ends may be fastened around plants which are placed at the requisite points.
Where there is no side door through which the groom and best man may enter the room at a house wedding, they come in by the principal door just before the bridal party and just after the minister.
It is not customary for the men at a wedding party to kiss the bride; that is a liberty taken only by the immediate members of the family.
A bride, if she wishes, may omit the bridal veil, but she should then wear a dainty bonnet or picture hat. The ushers and best men are invited by the bridegroom.
If the church wedding is a full dress one, followed by an evening reception, it is proper to wear an evening gown. If it is in the daytime, a handsome visiting dress and pretty bonnet are proper.
At a daytime wedding the guests seldom remove their bonnets, although, of course, heavy wraps are frequently laid aside. At an evening affair one goes in full dress without anything on one’s head. The ushers present the guests to the bridal party. The bridesmaids are spoken to by the people they know, but it is not necessary that they should be addressed by everybody.
A bride may wear her wedding dress after her wedding day as much or as little as she chooses. For the sake of sentiment many brides like to preserve their wedding dresses intact to hand down to future generations; but a girl who has to consider economy cannot afford to consider sentiment, and often the wedding dress is converted into a low dinner and evening gown soon after the wedding day. A bride may, with perfect propriety, wear her wedding dress to the reception given her after her wedding by the groom’s mother. Of course, she will wear it just as it was when she was married, high in the neck, unless the reception takes place in the evening and demands evening dress, when, according to the conventions, it must be cut low.
A bridegroom is always expected to furnish the bouquets that the bride, bridesmaids, and all the bride’s attendants carry at the wedding. He should learn from the bride the flowers she wishes, and should order them several days before the wedding, so that they may be ready at the bride’s house when the bridesmaids meet there to go together to the church or to the place where the ceremony is held.