Manners and Social Usages

by M. E. W. Sherwood

A prevailing fashion for wedding presents is to give heavy pieces of furniture, such as sideboards, writing-tables, cabinets, and pianos.

A favorite dress for travelling is heliotrope cashmere, with bonnet to match. For a dark bride nothing is more becoming than dark blue tailormade with white vest and sailor collar. Gray cashmere with steel passementerie has also been much in vogue. A light gray mohair, trimmed with lace of the same color, was also much admired.

We have mentioned the surroundings of the brides, but have not spoken of the background. A screen hung with white and purple lilacs formed the background of one fair bride, a hanging curtain of Jacque-minot roses formed the appropriate setting of another. Perhaps the most regal of these floral screens was one formed of costly orchids, each worth a fortune. One of the most beautiful of the spring wedding dresses was made of cream-white satin over a tulle petticoat, the tulle being held down by a long diagonal band of broad pearl embroidery, the satin train trimmed with bows of ribbon in true-lovers' knots embroidered in seed-pearls; a shower of white lilacs trimmed one side of the skirt.

Another simple dress was made of white silk, trimmed with old Venetian point, the train of striped ivory point and white satin depending la Watteau from the shoulders, and fastened at the point of the waist. At the side three large pleats formed a drapery, which was fringed with orange-blossoms.

From England we hear of the most curious combinations as to travelling-dresses. Biscuit-colored canvas, embroidered around the polonaise in green and gold, while the skirt is edged with a broad band of green velvet. The new woollen laces of all colors make a very good effect in the "going-away dress" of a bride.

We are often asked by summer brides whether they should wear bonnets or round hats for their travelling-dress. We unhesitatingly say bonnets. A very pretty wedding bonnet is made of lead-colored beads without foundation, light and transparent; strings of red velvet and a bunch of red plums complete this bonnet. Gold-colored straw, trimmed with gold-brown velvet and black net, makes a pretty travelling-bonnet. Open-work black straw trimmed with black lace and red roses, very high in the crown, with a "split front," is a very becoming and appropriate bonnet for a spring costume.

A pretty dress for the child bridemaids is a pink faille slip covered with dotted muslin, not tied in at the waist, and the broadest of high Gainsborough hats of pale pink silk with immense bows, from the well-known pictures of Gainsborough's pretty women.

But if a summer bride must travel in a bonnet, there is no reason that her trousseau should not contain a large Leghorn hat, the straw caught up on the back in long loops, the spaces between filled in with bows of heliotrope ribbon. The crown should be covered with white ostrich tips. This is a very becoming hat for a lawn party.

It would be a charming addition to our well-known and somewhat worn-out Wedding-March, always played as the bride walks up the aisle, if a chorus of choir boys would sing an epithalamium, as is now done in England. These fresh young voices hailing the youthful couple would be in keeping with the child bridesmaids and the youthful brothers. Nay, they would suggest those frescoes of the Italian villas where Hymen and Cupid, two immortal boys, always precede the happy pair.

It is a pleasant part of weddings everywhere that the faithful domestics who have loved the bride from childhood are expected to assist by their presence at the ceremony, each wearing a wedding favor made by the fair hand of the bride herself. An amusing anecdote is told of a Yorkshire coachman, who, newly arrived in America, was to drive the bride to church. Not knowing him, particularly as he was a new addition to the force, the bride sent him his favor by the hands of her maid. But Yorkshire decided stoutly against receiving such a vicarious offering, and remarked, "Tell she I'd rather 'ave it from she." And so "she" was obliged to come down and affix the favor to his livery coat, or he would have resigned the "ribbons." The nurses, the cook, the maids, and the men-servants in England always expect a wedding favor and a small gratuity at a wedding, and in this country should be remembered by a box of cake, and possibly by a new dress, cap, or bonnet, or something to recall the day.