THE WAR WEDDING.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 593, 4 January 1916, Page 4

THE WAR WEDDING.

When war began last year many of the traditional wedding costumes of happier days were abandoned, and few have been revived again. Gone may be the packed churches and congested receptions, gone the long retinues of bridesmaids and the massed array of duplicated and useless presents. And the result is that the wedding of today is a much less trying affair to all concerned and in its greater simplicity a more appropriately solemn as well as a joyful occasion. The war wedding is nearly always a hurried affair, so it is useless to attempt to send out many invitations or to name a date Jong beforehand for the ceremony. All that depends upon the bridegroom's leave. The bride too, independent and resourceful creature that she is, must take upon herself some of the bridegroom's responsibilities. She will possibly even have to buy the ring! And very likely she carries it to the church, for the soldier husband will have enough to do in all likelihood to keep the appointment made for the ceremony. He may have a best man, and that best man may be the ring-keeper. But then, again, there may not even be a best man. "Where are you going for your honeymoon?" a young soldier bridegroom was asked at his wedding the other day, and no one seemed very much surprised when he answered that he actually did not know. "She" had arranged even that point, knowing that her husband-to-be was far too greatly preoccupied. ' Music, llowers, and a wedding cake seem to be the three traditional items still demanded by the war bride. Originality is greatly admired in the flowers chosen and in their arrangement. For the sheaf of Lavender, orchids, or Lilies there are more votaries than for the elaborate, bouquet of orange blossoms. The sheaf looks less formal and premeditated than the bouquet. It was a happy thought that suggested sheaves of lavender tied with silver ribbons for the bridesmaids to carry at a recent wedding; one thought of fragrant gardens embowered in peace. And a still happier thought it was to send the sheaves and the- bridal bouquet to a hospital. The wounded soldiers are getting many such offerings now. The marriage robe is usually a very simple dress and a short one. But the veil is extraordinarily long, sweeping the ground, and giving, it may be, to the attendant pages something to support instead of the usual train. The Regulation Dress. At the weddings of those in civilian life also the regulation wedding dress is the short white one, with the long veil that seems to have taken the fancy of all. It is made usually of lace, new or old, or of tulle hemmed with floss silk embroidery, pearls, or tiny crystal and silver beads, and is draped on-the head, in the old-world way beneath a chaplet of orange blossom. In the winter the regulation weddinggown is not so well represented as the travelling, frock, and there is good reason for the change. The regulation bride certainly looks her best in a full church, though at the quiet summer wedding one misses the large congregation very little, and the bride stands

out in her blanche raiment with picturesque and even pathetic emphasis. But the dark or artificially lighted and half-empty church is quite a different matter, and the travelling dress with fur trimmings there makes a tempting alternative to chilly white. The new short skirt and long coat toilette, the coat very full below the waist and the accompaniments richly furred, look exceedingly handsome and appropriate.