At a country wedding, if the day is fine, little tables are set out on the lawn. The ladies seat themselves, the gentlemen carry refreshments to them. The piazzas can be decorated with autumn boughs, evergreens, and flowers; the whole thing becomes a garden-party, and even the family dogs should have a wreath of white flowers around their necks.
Much ill feeling is apt to be engendered by the distinction which is inevitably made in leaving out the friends who feel that they were entitled to an invitation to the house. It is better to offend no one on so important an occasion.
Wedding-cards and wedding stationery should be simple, white without glaze, and with no attempt at ornamentation.
It is proper for the bride to have her left hand bare as she walks to the altar, as it saves her the trouble of taking off a long glove.
Child bridesmaids are very pretty and very much in favour. These charming children, covered with flowers and looking very grave and solemn, are the sweetest of heralds for a wedding procession.
There is not, however, much difficulty except when Protestant marries Catholic. Such a marriage cannot be celebrated at the High Altar; it leads to a house wedding which is in the minds of many much more agreeable, as saving the bride the journey to church. In this matter, one of individual preference of course, the large and liberal American mind can have a very wide choice.
In France the couple must go to the Mairie, where an official in a tricolour scarf, looking like Marat, marries them. This is especially the case if husband or wife is a divorced person, the Catholic church refusing to marry such. It is a curious fact, that in Catholic Italy a civil marriage is the only legal marriage; therefore good Catholics are all married twice. A mixed marriage in Catholic countries is very difficult; but in our country, alas! the wedding knot can be untied as easily as it is tied.
"This train waits twenty minutes for divorces" is a joke founded on fact.
"What do divorcées do with their wedding presents?" has been a favourite conundrum of late, especially with those sent by the friends of the husband.
If an evening wedding takes place in a church those who are asked to the house afterwards should go without bonnets. Catholic ladies, however, must always cover their heads in church; so they throw a light lace or mantilla over the head.