THE MODERN WEDDING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 164, 14 July 1933, Page 2

THE MODERN WEDDING

THEATRICAL DISPLAYS. The modern wedding has almost become a play in three acts, or rather, perhaps a pantomime, states a London writer. There is the engagement with genealogies, sporting records, and tastes and pastimes of the individuals concerned. There is the wedding present and trousseau era, and finally there is the grand transformation scene, when only Harlequins and Columbines arc excluded. The growth, indeed, of the fancy dress element in English weddings is extreme of recent years, and churches are converted into stages, on which the performers parade ami impress a willing public. Wedding dresses arc a matter of long tradition, and all tho wedding actions have for the most part something symbolic behind them. Otherwise there would be nothing but eccentricity as a reason for wearing a white satin dress and carrying Aladonna lilies in mid-winter in a public place. But the traditional element is fast yielding to the sensational, and brides vic with each other in finding some thing different for a ceremony in which only tho traditional is really justified. It strikes the benighted foreigner as extraordinary that a wedding should be a signal for children to bo dressed as for a. fancy dress ball; that, n period should I o consulted not because it is the traditional form for a wedding, but because that, particular wedding happens to seize upon it; that garlands or reins or traces should be carried by a procession of bridesmaids for no par ticular reason, and that the whole festivity should take place not in a ballroom or on a stage, but in one of tho traditional buildings of the country which dignity has hitherto been the keynote. In France the bride’s dress is so traditional that, not much variation can be made upon it, while brides maids arc dressed, and not costumed, as is the custom hero. It is tho differ cnee between a wedding and a mannequin parade. hk