usand, and except for the canopied background against which the
bride and groom receive, there is very little floral decoration of the
house. If a tent is built, it is left as it is--a tent--with perhaps some
standard trees at intervals to give it a decorated appearance. The tables,
even that of the bride, their garniture, the service, and the food are all
precisely the same, the difference being in the smaller number of guests
provided for.

=A SMALL WEDDING=

A small wedding is merely a further modification of the two preceding
ones. Let us suppose it is a house wedding in a moderate-sized house.

A prayer bench has been placed at the end of the drawing-room or
living-room. Back of it is a screen or bower of palms or other greens. One
decoration thus serves for chancel and background at the reception. A
number of small tables in the dining-room may seat perhaps twenty or even
fifty guests, besides the bride's table placed in another room. If the
bride has no attendants, she and the groom choose a few close friends to
sit at the table with them. Or, at a smaller wedding, there is a private
marriage in a little chapel, or the clergyman reads the service at the
house of the bride in the presence of her parents and his and a small
handful of guests, who all sit down afterwards at one table for a wedding
breakfast.

Or there may be a greater number of guests and a simpler collation, such
as a stand-up afternoon tea, where the refreshments are sandwiches, cakes,
tea and chocolate.

=BREACH OF ETIQUETTE FOR GROOM TO GIVE WEDDING=

No matter whether a wedding is to be large or tiny, there is one
unalterable rule: the reception must be either at the house of the bride's
parents or grandparents or other relative of hers, or else in assembly
rooms rented by her family. Never under any circumstances should a wedding
reception be given at the house of the groom's family. They may give a
ball or as many entertainments of whatever description they choose for the
young couple after they are married, but the wedding breakfast and the
trousseau of the bride must be furnished by her own side of the house!

When a poor girl marries, her wedding must be in keeping with the means of
her parents. It is not only inadvisable for them to attempt expenditure
beyond what they can afford, but they would lay themselves open to far
greater criticism through inappropriate lavishness, than through
meagerness of arrangement--which need not