Part 23 (1/2)

At a standing-up luncheon the gentlemen should help the ladies and themselves to the various dishes on the table, as dishes are not handed at this description of luncheon; hot entrees and soup are not given. The menu is in other respects similar.

The tables should be decorated with flowers at either a standing-up or a sitting-down luncheon. Bottles of champagne should be placed the length of the table at a standing-up luncheon; if not, the gentlemen should ask the servants in attendance for champagne for the ladies they have taken down, and for themselves. At a sitting-down luncheon the servants offer champagne to the guests in the same order in which they hand the dishes.

When the sweets have been handed the bride should cut the wedding-cake.

This she does by merely making the first incision with a knife; it should then be cut by the butler into small slices, and handed on dessert plates to the guests.

=The Health of the Bride and Bridegroom= should then be proposed by the most distinguished guest present, for which the bridegroom should return thanks. He should then propose the health of the bridesmaids, for which the best man should return thanks.

Occasionally the gentleman of highest rank present also proposes this health in place of the bridegroom.

The health of the bride's father and mother should be proposed by the bridegroom's father.

It is now the custom to confine proposing healths at wedding luncheons within the narrowest limits. The health of the bride and bridegroom, and that of the bridesmaids being, in general, the only healths proposed.

At standing-up luncheons and at wedding receptions, the health of the bride and bridegroom only is proposed.

=The Bride should leave the Dining-room= immediately after the healths have been drunk, to change her dress for departure.

The head bridesmaid should accompany her, if related to her, and the guests should adjourn to the drawing-room to await the bride's reappearance, which should not be long delayed, and the adieus should then be made. Leave-takings should not be prolonged more than is absolutely necessary.

The parents should follow the bride and bridegroom into the hall, and adieus to them should there be made.

=The Old-fas.h.i.+oned Custom= of throwing satin slippers after the bride is sometimes observed, foolish as it is. It is the best man's or the head bridesmaid's privilege to perform this ridiculous act.

When rice is thrown after a bride it should be scattered by the married and not by the unmarried ladies present; but the custom, like that of throwing the so-called ”confetti,” is now practically obsolete in good society.

=Strewing the Bride's Path with Flowers= from the church to the carriage by village children is a custom much followed at weddings which take place in the country.

=The Honeymoon= now seldom lasts longer than a week or ten days. Many brides prefer spending their honeymoon in their future home, if it happens to be in the country, instead of making a hurried trip to Paris or elsewhere, or to spending it at the country house of a friend, lent to them for the purpose. But it is entirely a matter of individual feeling which course is taken.

=The Bride's Trousseau= should be marked with the initials of the name she is to take.

=The Bridegroom should provide= the house-linen and all other things appertaining to the bride's new home.

=The Wedding Presents= should be dispatched to the bride's residence immediately after the wedding, and they should at once be put into their several places, and not arranged for the purpose of being shown to visitors.

=The Bridal Wreath= should not be worn after the wedding-day. The bridal wreath, the bridal bouquet, and the orange blossoms from the wedding-cake, if treasured as mementos of the happy event, should be preserved in the recesses of a locked drawer in the bride's chamber, and not exhibited under gla.s.s shades in the drawing-room.

=Precedence= should not be accorded to a bride during the first three months after marriage, although this old-fas.h.i.+oned custom is sometimes followed at country dinner-parties on the occasion of a bride's first visit.