The simpler the pageant, the more effective it will be. First may come a tiny flower girl in a white frock, swinging a cretonne flowered sunbonnet from which she tosses apple blossom sprays.
If there are bridesmaids, they should wear the simplest of pink dresses with pink fillets on their hair or else wide straw hats trimmed only with a tiny wreath of flowers.
Possibly the maid of honor may add a note of contrast by wearing forget-me-not blue.
Last of all appear the bride and bridegroom, together, for in an old-fashioned orchard wedding that is less awkward than for the bridegroom to come from some other direction. The bride should wear a simple white gown—formal satin would be out of place.
The wedding breakfast may be served picnic fashion on a long table of boards decked with apple blossoms. Toasts in strawberry punch are in order while an orchestra of robins and bluebirds sing in the apple trees round about—unless the noise drives them away. The little waiting maids should wear white aprons and white caps with an apple blossom sprig stuck in the top.
Following them came a flock of flower children, tiny girls and boys scattering flower petals from the high-handled baskets swinging in their chubby little hands.
Last of all, four abreast, came the bride and bridegroom, with the bride's mother, who gave her away, on the right of the bride, and the best man on the left of the bridegroom. The ribbon girls had accompanied the procession at the proper intervals holding the aisle ribbon, and the last two brought up the rear, winding up the ribbon as they came.
The reception took place immediately afterward on the lawn, and the guests were served with ice-cream and cake wherever they chanced to be by the attentive ribbon girls.
In the back yard at a long table a colored caterer superintended the service.
Altogether it was a most successful wedding and at the same time a fairly easy one to plan since there was no question of overcrowding in the house, although in case of rain it could have been managed there.