Flowers and ..Foliage

Southland Times, Issue 22913, 11 June 1936, Page 14

Flowers and ..Foliage

What Can Be Done

“J-JAPPY the bride the sun shines on” bodes ill for those married in June, if an old superstition is to be believed. And what of evening weddings ? No reference has been made to them in the annals of marriage superstitions. Perhaps it is because these quaint sayings regarding brides were drawn up very many years ago, further back than even our great-grandmothers are able to remember, when weddings in the evening were not thought of, or, if they were, the thought was discarded as too radical a departure from the conservative custom of the years. We “moderns” might well add a little originality of our own, I think: “Happy the bride the stars twinkle on!” But June weddings. Why we, who live in New Zealand, talk of “June weddings” is difficult to understand, for June, as everybody knows, is mid-winter. with us, the month of the shortest day and heavy downpours of rain, unpleasantly accompanied by wind which is most devastating to bridal veils and trains and dainty slippered feet! Probably it is because the month of June is mid-summer at “Home,” the beloved country of our ancestors, that we still cling to the habit of saying “A June wedding,” and why so many marriage dates are fixed for that time. The bad fortune brought about by the absence of the sun, who is reluctant to spare even a ray to bless the bride as she goes to the Church, is possibly nullified by the wearing of “something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue”! For there are many proved successful and happy marriages that have taken place during June—and also in that socalled unlucky month of May! Winter is a difficult time for the florist to procure flowers with which to supplj the wedding party, for flowers enhance, sometimes almost entirely “make,” a wedding. No bridal gown of satin is quite so regal without a sheaf of arum lilies or water lilies, nor is the picture fiock of a bridesmaid quite so delicately lovely without the shadings of earnations or roses to emphasise its loveliness. And would the tiny flower girl look quite so demure and lovable without her tight little Victorian posy of field flowers? Flowers, too, add to the attractiveness of the table for the wedding breakfast and to the general appearance of the reception room. One would wander long and in vain in one’s garden just now and not find suitable and sufficient flowers for such an occasion, but, if one lives in a city, it is almost always possible to get one’s choicest flower, for there they are grown under glass and “forced” to such an extent that one may have lily-of-the-valley in the autumn or sweet peas in June. At this time of the year the glass-houses are guarding that delightful family of orchids —spider orchids, green orchids, lady-slipper orchids—whose names do not sound very appealing but •who, in their delicacy of colouring and formation and because of their rarity, are exquisite bridal flowers. That maiden-hair, whether it be the coarse variety or the little fine pink-tipped one, so delicate and ephemerallooking that one almost expects to see it melt when it is touched, should be chosen as the foliage to accompany orchids, seems very suitable since they are brought up side by side in the shadowed light of indoors for many months together. Foliage is a splendid substitute for flowers. The liquid ambers, the rhus and the maples are as brilliant as any flower. I have seen whole bouquets and garlands arranged entirely from them alone. All the berried shrubs am! trees are delightful as interior decorations—that is, if one is clever enough to rescue them from all the flocks of voracious little birds, ever on the look-out for supplies! So, June brides, in spite of the lack of sunshine and of flowers, take courage and as your feet walk through puddles of rain remember the piece of old lace that is tucked into a fold of your gown—lace that great-grandmother wore as part of her crinoline on her wedding day so many years ago!