No Nice Girl Swears by Alice-Leone Moats

Author:Alice-Leone Moats
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Apollo Publishers
Published: 2019-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

The Great Step

When we think of how engagements and weddings used to be celebrated, our own fashion seems a bit casual. The announcement of an engagement was the signal for the whole countryside to pay a formal call to drink to the health and happiness of the affianced pair. A year or two then elapsed. To get married sooner than nine months after the betrothal was considered unseemly haste. The wedding day approached, and ornate silver, heavy cut glass, statues of little Negroes hopefully extending card-salvers, began to pour in from all sides. Distant cousins, aunts, and uncles the bride had never seen, rolled into town in carriages, and relatives crowded the house to the very attic. There were festivities for a week, and the eating, drinking, and dancing continued until the day of the ceremony. Then all the guests thronged decorously into the church to watch the bride float slowly up the aisle under a cloud of tulle and lace that hid the blushes which rose at the memory of Mamma’s embarrassed exposition of the facts of life.

Now an engagement may be announced by the parents of the bride-to-be at a dinner at which the guests are told the news as they arrive, or Papa proposes a toast to the happy pair at the salad or dessert course. This last, however, is an out-moded procedure. The more modern content themselves with publishing the news in the papers. The necessary details are given either by telephone or by letter to several of the conservative newspapers. Even if you have a prejudice against having your personal affairs made a part of the daily news, it is better policy to send in a full account. Give particulars concerning both families, and where the young people were educated. If the engaged pair are of any prominence, a reporter will probably be sent up to get an interview.

They must never fail to write notes to their respective relatives and intimate friends, timing the letters to arrive a day or two before the news is made public. Only a few lines or a telegram will be expected, but no one entitled to such a letter should be overlooked as he will take it as a slight. Friends who live at some distance should write their best wishes and congratulations; the others may telephone. Incidentally, the girl receives best wishes, and the man congratulations.

According to strict rules of etiquette, the man’s parents must call on his future wife within twenty-four hours of the announcement. Actually, this is the exception rather than the rule. There doesn’t seem to be much point to it, for it would be strange for a girl never to have met her fiancé’s parents until after the engagement, unless, of course, they live in another city. And if they do, it might be rather difficult for them to pay their formal call within the time prescribed by strict etiquette. She takes him to meet her relatives and friends, but his must come to her.

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