ether. Always there are dishes filled with little fancy cakes, chosen
as much for looks as for taste. There is usually a big urn at one end
filled with bouillon and one at the other filled with chocolate or tea.
In four evenly spaced places are placed two cold dishes such as an aspic
of chicken, or ham mousse, or a terrine de foie gras, or other aspic. The
hot dishes may be a boned capon, vol-au-vent of sweetbread and mushrooms,
creamed oysters, chicken a la King, or chicken croquettes; or there may be
cold cuts, or celery salad, in tomato aspic. Whatever the choice may be,
there are two or three cold dishes and at least two hot. Whatever there
is, must be selected with a view to its being easily eaten with a fork
while the plate is held in the other hand! There are also rolls and
biscuits, pate de foie gras or lettuce and tomato sandwiches, the former
made usually of split "dinner" rolls with pate between, or thin sandwiches
rolled like a leaf in which a moth has built a cocoon. Ices are brought in
a little later, when a number of persons have apparently finished their
"first course." Ice cream is quite as fashionable as individual "ices." It
is merely that caterers are less partial to it because it has to be cut.

After-dinner coffee is put on a side table, as the champagne used to be.
From now on there will probably be a bowl or pitchers of something with a
lump of ice in it that can be ladled into glasses and become whatever
those gifted with imagination may fancy.

Unless the wedding is very small, there is always a bride's table,
decorated exactly as that described for a sit-down breakfast, and placed
usually in the library, but there is no especial table for the bride's
mother and her guests--or for anyone else.

=THE BRIDAL PARTY EAT=

By the time the sit-down breakfast has reached its second course and the
queue of arriving guests has dwindled and melted away, the bride and groom
decide that it is time they too go to breakfast. Arm in arm they lead the
way to their own table followed by the ushers and bridesmaids. The bride
and groom always sit next to each other, she on his right; the maid of
honor (or matron) is on his left, and the best man is on the right of the
bride. Around the rest of the table come bridesmaids and ushers
alternately. Sometimes one or two others--sisters of the bride or groom or
intimate friends, who were not included in the wedding party, are asked to
the table, and when there are n