Occasionally young couples think it clever to slip out of the area-way, or over the roofs, or out of the cellar and across the garden. All this is supposed to be in order to avoid being deluged with rice and having labels of "newly wed" or large white bows and odd shoes and slippers tied to their luggage.
Most brides, however, agree with their guests that it is decidedly "spoil sport" to deprive a lot of friends (who have only their good luck at heart) of the perfectly legitimate enjoyment of throwing emblems of good luck after them. If one white slipper among those thrown after the motor lands right side up, on top of it, and stays there, greatest good fortune is sure to follow through life.
There was a time when the "going away carriage" was always furnished by the groom, and this is still the case if it is a hired conveyance, but nowadays when nearly everyone has a motor, the newly married couple—if they have no motor of their own—are sure to have one lent them by the family of one of them. Very often they have two motors and are met by a second car at an appointed place, into which they change after shaking themselves free of rice. The white ribboned car returns to the house, as well as the decorated and labeled luggage, which was all empty—their real luggage having been bestowed safely by the best man that morning in their hotel or boat or train. Or, it may be that they choose a novel journey, for there is, of course, no regulation vehicle. They can go off in a limousine, a pony cart, a yacht, a canoe, on horseback or by airplane. Fancy alone limits the mode of travel, suggests the destination, or directs the etiquette of a honeymoon.
Bride's First Duty Of Thought For Groom's Parents
At the end of the wedding there is one thing the bride must not forget. As soon as she is in her traveling dress, she must send a bridesmaid or someone out into the hall and ask her husband's parents to come and say good-by to her. If his parents have not themselves come up-stairs to see their son, the bride must have them sent for at once!
It is very easy for a bride to forget this act of thoughtfulness and for a groom to overlook the fact that he can not stop to kiss his mother good-by on his way out of the house, and many a mother seeing her son and new daughter rush past without even a glance from either of them, has returned home with an ache in her heart.
It sounds improbable, doesn't it? One naturally exclaims, "But how stupid of her, why didn't she go up-stairs? Why didn't her son send for her?" Usually she does, or he does. But often the groom's parents are strangers; and if by temperament they are shy or retiring people they hesitate to go up-stairs in an unknown house until they are invited to. So they wait, feeling sure that in good time they will be sent for. Meanwhile the bride "forgets" and it does not occur to the groom that unless he makes an effort while up-stairs there will be no opportunity in the dash down to the carriage to recognize them—or anyone.
Flippancy Vs. Radiance
A completely beautiful wedding is not merely a combination of wonderful flowers, beautiful clothes, smoothness of detail, delicious food. These, though all necessary, are external attributes. The spirit, or soul of it, must have something besides; and that "something" is in the behavior and in the expression of the bride and groom.
The most beautiful wedding ever imagined could be turned from sacrament to circus by the indecorous behavior of the groom and the flippancy of the bride. She, above all, must not reach up and wig-wag signals while she is receiving, any more than she must wave to people as she goes up and down the aisle of the church. She must not cling to her husband, stand pigeon-toed, or lean against him or the wall, or any person, or thing. She must not run her arm through his and let her hand flop on the other side; she must not swing her arms as though they were dangling rope; she must not switch herself this way and that, nor must she "hello" or shout. No matter how young or "natural" and thoughtless she may be, she must, during the ceremony and the short time that she stands beside her husband at the reception, assume that she has dignity.