At a wedding breakfast the English custom is to have toasts and speeches, but it is not followed largely in this country. Where it is, usually at a small wedding party, the father of the bridegroom or the best man proposes the health of the bride and bridegroom. The father of the bride responds. Sometimes the bridegroom is called on to respond to this toast, which he does, proposing in turn the health of the bridesmaids. To this the best man responds.
The wedding cake is a rich dark fruit cake, which is at its best only when made months in advance and kept in a stone crock well covered. This is finely frosted and ornamented.
At the close of the wedding breakfast the wedding cake is set before the bride, who cuts the first slice from it. It is then passed to the others.
At a large wedding, where no breakfast is served, the wedding cake is usually cut into small pieces and placed in white boxes, which are decorated with the initials of the bride and bridegroom and are tied with white ribbon. These are placed upon a table in the hall near the door and the guests either each take one as he leaves, or one is handed him by a servant.
Sometimes a part of the wedding cake is put away in a tin box and sealed, to be opened by the couple on some future anniversary.
The wedding cake is distinct from the bride's cake, which may be served by the latter at a dinner to her bridesmaids a day or more before the wedding, and in which a thimble, a coin, and a ring are hidden. The superstition is that the young women who by chance receive the slices containing these are respectively destined for a future of single blessedness, wealth, or domestic bliss.
At a reception the larger number of the guests depart before the bridal couple go to the dining-room. As soon as refreshments are served them, and the toast to them has been drunk, they retire to don suits for traveling. The bridegroom waits for the bride at the foot of the staircase, and the bridesmaids gather there too, as when she comes, she throws her bridal bouquet among them, and the bridesmaid who catches it will be the next bride, according to an old superstition.
As the outer door is opened to let the couple out, all the friends and relatives present throw flowers or confetti or rice after them, for good luck, and an old white slipper is thrown after the carriage as they drive off. The custom of thus showering the departing couple has been sometimes carried to such an extreme that many refrain from it. Rice is somewhat dangerous, and confetti is so distinctive as frequently to cause embarrassment when in a public train or station. Flowers may appropriately be used, and are always at hand in the decorations of the home.
The Wedding Journey
The wedding journey is the bride and bridegroom's affair, and the knowledge of it is kept their secret and divulged only to the best man, who probably helps arrange for it, and to the father and mother of the bride, and they all are silent about it. The intrusion of even intimate friends upon such a trip is not considered good form.