Customs And Etiquette In The Services

Army traditions of customs have passed down the ages and are the pride and honour of the services. This book is every officer's elegant companion through his tenure.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... XIII. ETIQUETTE OF WEDDINGS. However hostile the aggressively independent American may be to conventionalities of all sorts, and deeply as his scorn of etiquette may have been planted and rooted, and vigorous as may be its present growths, marriages cannot be conducted without at least some little ceremony. There are formalities which cannot be escaped at weddings. Even at that simplest of services, a marriage between Quakers, the witnesses are compelled to sit in silence--that most awful of conventionalities to the person who abhors etiquette and ceremony--until one or the other of the two aspirants for a wedded life is moved by the spirit within to announce this intention audibly. The law enforces a ceremony, and the gentlybred have thrown about this unpicturesque but jurisprudential formality certain beautiful and refined customs, which, with harmonious variations, have been adopted by, and into, our best society. As the dress of the youthful bride is white, an artistic variation of the fashion of it is admissible, and even agreeable, but no one would mistake it for a garment intended for another festivity. Etiquette has, in the same spirit of liberality, established a formula for the celebration of marriages, and each bridal pair endeavors to vary and beautify these ceremonials by an individual and poetic charm, without really departing from those customs which time and long establishment have made venerable and impressive. The announcement of an engagement of marriage has no rigid formality in New York, and yet a betrothal is made known to the friends of the promised pair in some pleasant manner. Sometimes a dinner-party is given by the family of the bride-elect, or it may be enjoyed at the home of the groom (when the bride and her...

"Aughorities consulted": pages 727-731.