The young couple are not expected, unless Fortune has been exceptionally kind, to be immediately responsive in the matter of entertainments. The outer world is only too happy to entertain them. Nothing can be more imprudent than for a young couple to rush into expenditures which may endanger their future happiness and peace of mind, nor should they feel that they are obliged at once to return the dinners and the parties given to them. The time will come, doubtless, when they will be able to do so.
But the announcement of a day on which the bride will receive her friends is almost indispensable. The refreshments on these occasions should not exceed tea and cake, or, at the most, punch, tea, chocolate, and cakes, which may stand on a table at one end of the room, or may be handed by a waiter. Bouillon, on a cold day of winter, is also in order, and is perhaps the most serviceable of all simple refreshments. For in giving a "four-o'clock tea," or several day receptions, a large entertainment is decidedly vulgar.
CHAPTER XIV. GOLD, SILVER, AND TIN WEDDINGS.
Very few people have the golden opportunity of living together for fifty years in the holy estate of matrimony. When they have overcome in so great a degree the many infirmities of the flesh, and the common incompatibility of tempers, they deserve to be congratulated, and to have a wedding festivity which shall be as ceremonious as the first one, and twice as impressive. But what shall we give them?
The gifts of gold must be somewhat circumscribed, and therefore the injunction, so severe and so unalterable, which holds good at tin and silver weddings, that no presents must be given of any other metal than that designated by the day, does not hold good at a golden wedding. A card printed in gold letters, announcing that John Anderson and Mary Brown were married, for instance, in 1830, and will celebrate their golden wedding in 1880, is generally the only golden manifestation. One of the cards recently issued reads in this way:
1831. 1881.
Mr. and Mrs. John Anderson,
At Home November twenty-first, 1881,
Golden Wedding,
17 Carmichael Street,
at eight o'clock.
All done in gold, on white, thick English paper, that is nearly all the exhibition of gold necessary at a golden wedding, unless some friend gives the aged bride a present of jewellery. The bride receives her children and grandchildren dressed in some article which she wore at her first wedding, if any remain. Sometimes a veil, or a handkerchief, or a fan, scarcely ever the whole dress, has lasted fifty years, and she holds a bouquet of white flowers. A wedding-cake is prepared with a ring in it, and on the frosting is the date, and the monogram of the two, who have lived together so long.
These golden weddings are apt to be sad. It is not well for the old to keep anniversaries—too many ghosts come to the feast. Still, if people are happy enough to wish to do so, there can be no harm in it. Their surroundings may possibly surpass their fondest dreams, but as it regards themselves, the contrast is painful. They have little in common with bridal joys, and unless it is the wish of some irrepressible descendant, few old couples care to celebrate the golden wedding save in their hearts. If they have started at the foot of the ladder, and have risen, they may not wish to remember their early struggles; if they have started high, and have gradually sunk into poverty or ill health, they certainly do not wish to photograph those better days by the fierce light of an anniversary, It is only the very exceptionally good, happy, and serene people who can afford to celebrate a golden wedding.
Far otherwise with the silver wedding, which comes in this country while people are still young, in the very prime of life, With much before them, and when to stop midway to take an account of one's friends and one's blessings is a wise and a pleasant thing. The cards are issued, printed in silver, somewhat in this style: