June Social Affairs for Brides of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow - 1916

Front Cover, Woman's Home Campanion, June 1916

A Golden Wedding

AN old-fashioned "high tea" served as a buffet supper, is likely to enable the hostess to ask all the friends of the honored couple. The whole idea is to reproduce as nearly as you can the atmosphere and customs of fifty years ago.

Lay a white tablecloth over the table and in the middle form a square centerpiece of green moss. On the moss, place an old-fashioned bride's bouquet of white camellias, or valley lilies, with a starched little frill of lace about it, tied with a big white satin bow.

This, of course, is presented to Grandmother at the close of the evening. Beside it, is a pair of old-fashioned lace mitts and a yellowed old lace handkerchief.

At one side are heaped tiny bags of golden brocaded silk, filled with dried rose leaves and tied with golden bows. (These bags can be made very easily by sewing two oblong strips of the silk together, raveling the open end into fringe, and tying tightly with the ribbon.)

In one of these bags, a gold ring is hidden among the sweet-smelling petals, and as each feminine guest is supposed to take a sachet home as a souvenir, one, of course, will find the luck-bringing ring in hers.

On the other side of the centerpiece are the souvenirs for the men, which take the form of dainty boxes of wedding cake. If it is possible, choose little square gilt boxes for this purpose, fill them with squares of the cake, and on the box cover, paste a bundle of tiny-doll-envelopes (which can be made with the aid of scissors and glue, or bought at any toy shop).

These envelopes should be tied with faded blue ribbons to represent fifty-year-old love letters. Yellow wax candles in tall brass candlesticks stand at the corners of the mossy centerpiece, lighting the table in the old-time way.

At the four corners of the table, small dolls (about ten inches high) stand, each dressed in the costume of fifty years past—little puffed hoop skirts of gold-colored tulle held out by crinoline, and tiny poke bonnets of leaf-green velvet lined with ruffled lace and tied under the chin with big golden ribbons.

Twisted about each doll's arm is a narrow gold ribbon stretching to the next doll, where it is wrapped around her arm in the same manner. Swinging by this ribbon should be a chime of tiny brass bells so that there are fifty of them in all, forming a sort of ring about the table edge.

Over the doll's other arm, is a small basket, as much like an old-fashioned garden basket as possible, and these baskets are filled with conserves, candied orange peel, violets and cherries. The dishes should be all the good old-fashioned ones, cold roast ham, boned chicken, salads, hot biscuits, and pies, with a big silver pot of steaming coffee.

At one end of the table, there should be, of course, a huge bride-cake, with the names and dates written in orange icing; and the fifty-years bride must be the first to cut a slice for good luck.

Through Rose-Colored Spectacles

A novel announcement luncheon was given recently for an engaged girl. At each plate was a pair of spectacles, drawn on water-color paper, the rims and bows gilded and the glass part tinted pink. On each one was written in tiny gilt letters, "Look through these and see what you see."

The "glasses'* opened like a booklet, and inside were the names of the newly engaged pair. The centerpiece was blush roses and the menu was pink as far as possible.

At the end of the luncheon, goblets of fruit punch, tinted pink, were brought round, and the bride-to-be's health was drunk. 

A Bridesmaids' Luncheon

In the center of the table is set a low glass bowl filled with deep pink roses and little sprigs of white candytuft.  From the bowl stretch strings of smilax, one to each place, where the smilax is fastened to a wee cardboard bell entirely covered with petals of rose-colored tissue paper.

As a first course, when the guests sit down to the table, there is already at every cover a little glass bowl full to the brim of uncooked rice. Out of the middle of the rice sticks an end of rose-colored ribbon with a wedding ring tied to it. The rings can be bought at the five-and ten-cent store, and will look very golden and shiny.

An Outdoor Announcement Party

The engaged girl asked her ten best friends to luncheon at her lovely old country place, which is more than half real farm. She met her guests at the door and ushered them at once out to a wide shaded piazza.

Here a porch table stood covered with a snowy tablecloth and made gay by a green pottery bowl of summer roses. Ten chairs were drawn up in a circle about the bible, and at tea places were pretty green pottery plates.

After seating the guests, the hostess proceeded to serve a big platter of ice-cold grapefruit, each half adorned with maraschino cherries. When the grapefruit had been eaten and the guests provided with bouquets from the rose bowl, the hostess suggested that they all go into the garden.

Here they discovered two rustic garden tables, each with five chairs drawn about it, laid with a pretty paper table cloth, and napkins, picnic style. Upon each table stood a garden basket filled with larkspur and mignonette, a thermos bottle, and five dainty bouillon cups. Also, there were plates of three-cornered plain bread and butter sandwiches. The thermos bottles held steaming chicken bouillon ready to serve.

"Now," said the hostess, when this course was finished, "let's go and rest a while out in the field over there where they have just stacked the hay." The guests followed her till she halted under a giant pine tree, where the biggest stack of all stood. Diving into the depths of the hay, she pulled out two closed market baskets and a gay red tablecloth, which she spread on the ground in the shade.

The baskets were discovered to contain paper napkins, cold sliced chicken and ham, buttered tea biscuits, still hot from the oven, and a covered bowl of tomatoes, scooped out, and stuffed with celery, chopped olives, and mayonnaise. Also, there was another thermos bottle, this time containing an iced fruit drink.

Finally, the guests were invited to go up to the barn, which was hung with graceful festoons of daisy chains from rafters to floor. Directly over the center of the big loftlike room, hung a huge white wedding bell, made entirely of daisies on a wire frame, and under the bell was a long table, set. 

The table was covered with ferns instead of a cloth, and in the middle was a big white bride-cake with the two names written on it in red icing. "Mary Smith" and "John West," enclosed in the outlines of a red heart.

Besides the hostess's seat was a freezer of homemade strawberry ice cream, and on the table were little white, spun-sugar baskets holding heart-shaped creams and chocolates.

"June Social Affairs: For Brides of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow," Marguerite Aspinwall, "A Golden Wedding," Jane Gates, "Through Rose-Colored Spectacles," Margaret Marshall, "A Bridemaids' Luncheon," and Marguerite Aspinwall, "An Outdoor Announcement Party," in Woman's Home Companion, Springfield,OH: The Crowell Publishing Company, Vol. XLIII, No. 6, June 1916, p. 33.

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