CHAPTER XXXIII.[ToC]
THE WEDDING.
Said my friend:
There's to be a grand wedding, you know,
With no end to the fuss and parade,
With sixteen fair bridesmaids to stand in a row,
With sixteen young groomsmen to help out the show,
One to stand by the side of each maid.
Then there's a reception to be very fine,
With all sorts of magnificent things,
With silver to glitter and mirrors to shine,
With tropical fruit and famous old wine,
With odorous flowers and music divine,
Drawn forth from melodious strings.
In the minds of many girls the wedding means only this public show, the display of elegant toilets, the reception of costly gifts; and the preparation of marriage means too often merely the making of an elegant trousseau. People generally do not ask concerning the fitness of the young people to enter on the solemn duties of life—do not ask how well they have been instructed concerning that which is before them; but the questions are all about clothes and gifts and ceremonials. No wonder, then, that the thought of the young woman centers on these things, to the exclusion of nearly all else; indeed, it may be to the detriment of health and the lessening of true happiness. The prospective husband finds his fiancée so absorbed in sewing, shopping and interviews with dressmakers that she has few moments to give to him, and these few occupied more with the thought of gowns and personal adornments than with ideals of wedded happiness.
Perhaps she even excuses herself for lessening the number of his visits on the plea that very soon now she will be all his, and so he is left to spend his last days of bachelorhood in loneliness, and made to feel that raiment is more than love. Worse still, it may be that on the wedding-day he takes to his heart a bride so wearied, so nervously exhausted by the preparations of the trousseau that she is at least temporarily an invalid. I have known more than one bride so worn out by the preparation for her wedding that instead of bringing brightness, joy and beauty into the new life, she brought illness, anxiety and care, and made demands at once upon the patience and service of the husband, who had a right to expect health and vigor and a power to enjoy.
I knew a sensible girl who said months before her marriage, "I am not going to bring to my new life a remnant of health, a shattered nervous system and a tattered temper," and she kept her word. Her sewing was done by degrees, and was all out of the way weeks before the wedding. Shopping and dressmaking were never allowed to interfere with the walks and drives, the chats and moonlight strolls. "We shall not be able to repeat this experience," she wisely said, and so her lover found her ever ready to give him her society and her thought. Her trousseau was not elaborate, her wedding-dress was simple, but in it she shone like a flower of the morning, full of brightness and health and joy.
She was wise in other respects. Only her intimate friends were invited to the wedding ceremony, and to these she said, "I want you to feel that it is you I invite, not your gifts. If your love impels you to give me some simple memento of yourself it will be cherished, but I'd rather have a pincushion made by your own hand, or a little flower painted by yourself, than the most costly purchased picture or most elegant piece of silver that you bought, because you thought it was expected. And if, when you come, you bring no gift but your love and blessing, I shall feel that that is the richest treasure."
There was no display of presents to a vulgar curiosity, no collection of duplicate butter-knives or berry-spoons to be secretly disposed of after the wedding. The gifts were few and not costly, but each told its own story of personal affection, and therefore really had a meaning.