CAMP-FIRE WEDDING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

CAMP-FIRE WEDDING.

RITES IN FOREST GLADE. A QUAKER-LIKE SILENCE. A wedding ceremony was performed a few weeks "go by the side of a camp fire in a pine-surrounded glade of Sandy Balls Wood, on the edge of the New Forest, near Fordingbridge, Hampshire. The. bride was Miss Elizabeth Pears, and her groom Mr. Harold Bing, members ol the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. Dr. Aubrey T. Westlake, of Bermondscy, owner of the woods, presided over the rites. Iler Father, the late Mr. Ernest Westlake, purchased the estate as a nature sanctuary, the chief campingground of the Order, which lie founded in 1916, and as a home for the Forest School which has been established since his death. Mr. Westlake's body rests beneath a mound in the midst of the woods at a point commanding a view of the Avon Valley, and overlooking his native town of Fordingbridge. The ceremony in general followed the ritual of the Order, combined with the formalities observed at marriages between members of the Society of Friends. The guests assembled around the fire, the groom and his supporters entering the circle from the north, and the bride and her friends from the south.

After a period of " open silence," as practised by the Quakers, the president announced the circumstances of the wed ding. The bride and her groom advanced toward the fire, plighting their troth, and niak'i.g mutual declarations of their intention to live together. A ring was placrrl on the bride's finger, and document were signed and witnessed.