he request of the bride.

THE SIMPLEST OF WEDDINGS.

Now, although we have told how the church wedding and the ordinary home
wedding are conducted, it does not follow that one may not have a much
simpler and yet a pretty wedding, with less "pomp and circumstance" and
consequent expense.

Wherever a girl has a home, she should be married from it. This is her
due, as "daughter of the house."

She may make the simplest possible preparations; may be married in her
best dress, not new for the occasion. She may omit all attendants, and
invite less than half a dozen of her friends; she may receive them herself
and at the appointed hour simply stand up and be married to a blushing
young man in a business suit, and afterwards cut her own cake, and then
proceed to her new home, which may be a little flat or a cottage. But she
should have the ceremony performed by a clergyman in her father's house.

If she has no parents, no home, merely a room in a boarding house, she and
her affianced may go to a clergyman's house and be married there. The
church and the law should sanction the rite; therefore she will not permit
herself to be married by a magistrate or a justice of the peace.

As for "sneaking off" and being married without the knowledge of one's
parents, this is both disrespectful and unkind--a poor return for their
care of her.

[MANNERS AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS 745]

WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES.

The fashion of celebrating a succession of wedding anniversaries has
passed its high tide and is on the wane. Nevertheless, the custom is not
out, by any means. The tenth, twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries,
known as the tin, silver, and golden, are those most frequently observed.

The first anniversary of the wedding day gives occasion for a paper
wedding; the second is cotton; the third leather. The fourth is omitted;
the fifth is the wooden wedding; next to be observed is the tin,
celebrating the close of the first decade. The next skip is to the china,
when twenty years have elapsed; and the quarter century of wedded
happiness is recognized in the silver wedding.

The wooden and tin weddings are occasions of great hilarity, and mean a
general frolic. The former began years ago with the gift of a rolling-pin
and a step-ladder. The gifts are of those practical, useful articles that
replenish the kitchen, though handsome gifts are of course easily
selected. Carved wooden boxes, handsome picture frames, articles of
furnitu