When the ring is to be put on, the bride hands her bouquet to the maid of honor, and draws off her left-hand glove, giving that also to the maid of honor, who holds both until after the benediction. After congratulating the newly-wedded pair, the clergyman gives them his place, and they stand facing the company, to receive congratulations. The bride’s mother should have been in the parlor to receive the guests as they arrived, and during the ceremony stands at the end of the room near the bridal party. She should be the first to congratulate the happy couple, the bridegroom’s parents following those of the bride. The maid of honor stands by the bride while she receives.
After congratulations have been extended, the wedding-breakfast is served at little tables placed about the various rooms. The bride and her party may, if desired, have a table to themselves, and upon this may be a wedding-cake, to be cut by the bride. This is not essential and has, of late years, been largely superseded by the squares of wedding cake, packed in dainty boxes, one of which is handed to each guest on leaving.
When the time comes for the bride to change her dress she slips quietly from the room, accompanied by her maid of honor. The bridegroom goes to an apartment assigned to him and his best man to put on his traveling suit. Later, the maid of honor may come down and tell the bride’s mother in an “aside” that she may now go up and bid her daughter good-by in the privacy of her own room. Afterward the young husband and wife descend the stairs together, say good-by in general to the guests awaiting them in the lower hall, and drive off, generally, one regrets to say, amid showers of rice.
AS TO PRACTICAL JOKES
I would say just here that the playing of practical jokes on a bridal pair is a form of pleasantry that should be confined to classes whose intellects have not been cultivated above the appreciation of such coarse fun. To tie a white satin bow on the trunk of the so-called happy pair so that all passengers may take note of them, is hardly kind. But jesting compared to some of the deeds done. A few weeks ago the papers gave an account of a groomsman who slipped handcuffs upon the wrists of bride and bridegroom, then lost the key, and the embarrassed couple had to wait for their train, chained together, until a file could be procured, by which time their train had left. Such forms of buffoonery may be diverting to the perpetrator; they certainly are not amusing to the sufferers.
THE QUIET WEDDING
this is refined A girl who is to be married quietly with only relatives or intimate friends present often says, in explaining this fact, “I’m not going to have a wedding.” The expression is not well chosen, for it inevitably suggests that the glitter of the ceremony is in her eyes more important than the solemn words which are the wedding.