DRESSING FOR CHURCH
One’s dress at church should invariably be quiet. This is prescribed not only by taste but by consideration for others who may be present and who may be of more limited means. A church is of all places the one in which to avoid exciting envy by costly apparel.
One of the mistaken ideas held by women who are just becoming sensitive to effects in dress is that everything should match. The result in such cases if not positively bad is usually dull and monotonous. The woman who wears with her blue suit a blue hat with a blue feather and a blue veil, a blue waist and blue gloves and shoes, is a nightmare. A black hat, an écru veil, gray gloves perhaps—in these ways relief and variety must be obtained. In choosing colors, the skin, hair and eyes should all be considered. It is an exploded idea that brunettes should cling to brown. Much depends on the complexion.
CHAPTER XVI
MAKING AND RECEIVING GIFTS
WEDDING gifts may be sent any time after the wedding cards are issued. They are sent to the bride, and may be as expensive and elaborate, or as simple and inexpensive, as the means of the sender make proper. An invitation to a church wedding, and not to the reception, precludes the necessity of making a wedding-present. Indeed the matter of wedding-presents admits of more freedom each year and many people make it a rule to send gifts only to intimate friends and relatives. Perhaps this state of affairs has been brought about by the fact that among a certain—or uncertain—class, invitations were sometimes issued with the special purpose of calling forth a number of presents,—in fact, for revenue only. Few persons acknowledge this of themselves, but sometimes a bride was met who was so indiscreet or so void of taste as to confess her hope that all the persons whom she invited to her nuptials would be represented by remembrances in gold, silver, jewelry or napery. The pendulum has swung as far in the opposite direction, and fewer wedding gifts than of old are sent from politeness alone.
Suitable gifts for a bride are silver, cut-glass, table linen, pictures, books, handsome chairs or tables, rugs, bric-à-brac and jewelry. In fact, anything for the new home is proper. It is not customary to send wearing apparel, except when this is given by some member of the bride’s family. A check made out to the bride is always a handsome gift. The parents of the wife-to-be frequently give the small silver.