Another very comprehensive and useful announcement of a wedding, from a lady living out of town, conveys, however, on one sheet of paper the desired information of where to find the bride:
_Mrs. Seth Osborne
announces the marriage of her daughter
Margurite
to
Mr. Joseph Wendon,
on
Wednesday, September the ninth,
at
Bristol, Connecticut.
At Home after January first,
at 758 Wood Street._
This card of announcement is a model of conciseness, and answers the oft-repeated question, "Where shall we go to find the married couple next winter?"
In arranging the house for the spring wedding the florists have hit upon a new device of having only one flower in masses; so we hear of the apple-blossom wedding, the lilac wedding, the lily wedding, the rose wedding and the daffodil wedding, the violet wedding, and the daisy wedding. So well has this been carried out that at a recent daisy wedding the bride's lace and diamond ornaments bore the daisy pattern, and each bridesmaid received a daisy pin with diamond centre.
This fashion of massing a single flower has its advantages when that flower is the beautiful feathery lilac, as ornamental as a plume; but it is not to be commended when flowers are as sombre as the violet, which nowadays suggests funerals. Daffodils are lovely and original, and apple-blossoms make a hall in a Queen Anne mansion very decorative. No one needs to be told that roses look better for being massed, and it is a pretty conceit for a bride to make the flower which was the ornament of her wedding her flower for life.
The passion for little girls as bridesmaids receives much encouragement at the spring and summer weddings. One is reminded of the children weddings of the fifteenth century, as these darlings, wearing Kate Greenaway hats, walk up the aisle, preceding the bride. The young brother of the bride, a mere boy, who, in the fatherless condition of his sister, recently gave her away, also presented a touching picture. It has become a fashion now to invoke youth as well as age to give the blessings once supposed to be alone at the beck and call of those whom Time had sanctified.
The bridal dresses are usually of white satin and point lace, a preference for tulle veils being very evident. A pin for the veil, with a diamond ornament, and five large diamonds hanging by little chains, makes a very fine effect, and is a novelty. The groom at a recent wedding gave cat's-eyes set round with diamonds to his ushers for scarf pins, the cat's-eye being considered a very lucky stone.
The ushers and the groom wear very large boutonnieres of stephanotis and gardenias, or equally large bunches of lilies-of-the-valley, in their button-holes.
At one of the country weddings of the spring a piper in full Scotch costume discoursed most eloquent music on the lawn during the wedding ceremony. This was a compliment to the groom, who is a captain in a Highland regiment.