daughter of ultra rich and prominent
people in a city such as New York, or, more probably, a high-noon wedding
out of town. The details would in either case he the same, except that the
"country setting" makes necessary the additional provision of a special
train which takes the guests to a station where they are met by dozens of
motors and driven to the church. Later they are driven to the house, and
later again, to the returning special train.

Otherwise, whether in the city or the country, the church (if Protestant)
is decorated with masses of flowers in some such elaborateness as
standards, or arches, or hanging garlands in the church itself, as well as
the floral embellishment of the chancel. The service is conducted by a
bishop or other distinguished clergyman, with assistant clergymen, and
accompanied by a full choral service, possibly with the addition of a
celebrated opera soloist. The costumes of the bride and her maids are
chosen with painstaking attention to perfection, and with seeming
disregard of cost.

Later, at the house, there is not only a floral bower under which the
bridal couple receive, but every room has been turned into a veritable
woodland or garden, so massed are the plants and flowers. An orchestra--or
two, so that the playing may be without intermission--is hidden behind
palms in the hall or wherever is most convenient. A huge canopied platform
is built on the lawn or added to the veranda (or built out over the yard
of a city house), and is decorated to look like an enclosed formal garden.
It is packed with small tables, each seating four, six, or eight, as the
occasion may require.

=THE AVERAGE FASHIONABLE WEDDING=

The more usual fashionable wedding is merely a modification of the one
outlined above. The chancel of the church is decorated exactly the same,
but except in summer when garden flowers are used, there is very little
attempted in the body of the church other than sprays of flowers at the
ends of the ten to twenty reserved pews, or possibly only at the ends of
the first two pews and the two that mark the beginning of the ribboned
section. There is often a choral service and a distinguished officiating
clergyman. The costumes of bride and bridesmaids are usually the same in
effect, though they may be less lavish in detail.

The real difference begins at the breakfast, where probably a hundred
guests are invited, or two hundred at most, instead of from five hundred
to a tho