After the Ceremony.
The service over, which may or may not have been accompanied by low, slow music, the clergyman shakes hands with and congratulates the newly-wedded couple (kissing being no longer permissible), the groom draws the bride’s right hand within his left arm and conducts her to the carriage, taking the center aisle if the church have one; if not, taking the opposite from that by which they entered, the bride, her veil over her face, neither recognizing nor paying the slightest apparent heed to any one in the church. The organ peals forth, the procession re-forms and follows to the door, first the bridemaids, next the ushers. If there have been choristers, they lead the line, chanting as before, until their voices die out of hearing in the vestibule. Often, too, the child-bridemaids precede the couple as they leave the church, scattering flowers before them, the whole forming a very pretty pageant to the eye. The church may have been richly decorated with flowers and potted plants.
Where there is but one bridemaid or maid of honor, as she is then called, she attends to all the duties necessary, but the bridal procession is shorn somewhat of its fair proportions.
The vestibule reached, certificate or church register signed, the bride is cloaked, and, entering a carriage with her husband, is quickly driven home, the guests remaining in their seats until the cessation of the wedding march, when they, too, enter their carriages. Meanwhile the “best man” takes the shortest route possible to the same destination in order to assist the head usher, who with, perhaps, some of the other ushers, is supposed to be already there, in receiving the bridal party and guests as they reach the house. The remaining ushers busy themselves in assisting the bridemaids to their carriages and speeding them onward that they, if possible, may reach the house in time to receive the bride and groom.
If the church wedding be in the evening the same order will be observed, save that the gentlemen wear evening dress.
The Reception.
At the house the ushers introduce the guests to the newly-married couple who, together with the bridemaids, form a group to receive the good wishes of the company. The parents of the bride stand a little apart from this party and receive the felicitations of their guests in behalf of their daughter’s welfare. The parents of the groom, if present, form part of this group.
If the company is very large it is well to divide the centers of attractions by placing the young couple in one room and the parents in another, thus compelling a freer circulation of the guests, who else would crowd the bridal party to suffocation.
The house may be profusely decorated with flowers, and the rooms though daylight reign without, may have been carefully darkened only to be re-illuminated by the softer radiance of waxen candles or shaded gas jets.