UN-FRENCH CUSTOM

Evening Star, Issue 20863, 5 August 1931, Page 11

UN-FRENCH CUSTOM

BRIDESMAIDS IN PARIS Oiico more an English custom which has_ crossed the Channel is being energetically criticised in Paris. This time jt is not British words, or British clothes, or “5 o’clock tea’ that is objected to as being “ un-French,” but the normal ceremonial at a fashionable British marriage. A writer in the organ of the National Alliance for Increasing the French Population makes an attack on bridesmaids. The writer objects principally to the dresses and the hats of these charming young people on such an occasion, comparing them to those of “ rctresses in a play or the dancers of a corps do ballet.” The presence of bridesmaids, ho holds, helps to destroy the family ideal which was formerly the chief feature of all ■‘grande marriages” in Franco. In the old days the bride was followed by the bridegroom’s mother on the bridegroom’s arm, and behind them camo the bride’s mother, escorted by her future son-in-law’s father. Immediately behind these were the grandparents, accompanied bv their grandchildren. It was essentially a family affair, and it demonstrated tho unity and importance of the family. Nowadays, tho bride is escorted by her father and followed by tho bridesmaids. Often they are not members of the family. It is "suggested that “one day people will engage these standardised girls, whose wholesale production has been so highly perfected in Engdand, at tho throatrical agencies.”