The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-24
Fashionable weddings.


by Lucia Gilbert Calhoun, in the n. Y. Ledger
Now, the custom of giving wedding presents is
in itself beautiful Your friend Is, as IL were born
again on this her wedding. day, so new and changed
is her future. You hope she will be happy; you
hope that she will never forget you and your ten
defness for her, and you send her some dainty
gift, whose beauty shall delight her, whose daily
presence shall sweety remind her OF you. You
DO not send il that Mrs Smith may wonder whether
il cost as much as hers. You do not send IL to
have il regarded as the measure Of your clean
and low ability" by the dear, five hundred friends
of the bride and when it is so used, If you have
any delicacy within you, you are panied and sur
prised. Somebody in an evil hour once showed
her bridal presents, and then the pretty custom at
once became vugarity. If the gifts we're to be
shown, this one must give, and that one, not be-
cause her heart moved her-not because her
purse permitted, but because her offering must
not be absent. And now, every fashionable we'd
ding is polite extorton, deliberate tax-levy on
the friends Of the bride, TO be paid in silver spoons
and butter dishes.
One of the sweetest girls know told me that
she asked such and such people to her wed.
ding-vIlgar, miserable acquaintance as they
weIe-because she knew they would give her
presents. Indeed, she confessed, without the
slightest shame scedDess, that she gave q we'd
ding on account Of the tariff system. 1T will be
such help toward housekeeping abe strikingly
remarked. Why, the queen in " Hamlet " was
miracle of delicacy and propriety compared with
these rapaciOus young women, and the funeral
baked meats that coldly furnished forth the mar.
riage-table, were less hollow feast than the we'd
ding breakfasts of day. 1t is an incredible fact
that wedding presents are hired from the jewel.
eTs, and labeled with the names of suppositltious
relatives, TO make up the melancholy display. 1t
is a horrible sequence that policemen should be
placed on guard over the laden tables during the
reception. No repTobation could be so severe as
the statement of the fact.
o, girls are you children of revolutionary mo-
thersf Are You daughters, and sisters, and
~ MAJ xuh lot hot
and found life other than a joke and a sham!
Are you akin to the women who upheld their
hands, and nursed them, living, and buried them,
dead, and can you make your daily lives q
WTetched pretence from maidenhood to death!
II you love man with heart and soul, marry
him (provided, of course, that he loves you and
asks you). IL you don't love him, don't marry
him, thou you die an old maid at ninety in the
Asylum for INDECENT Old Maids, about TO be es-
tablished in Boston. But let your wedding be
simple, aud quiet, and beautiful with love, but not
with money. Ifyou are rich, do this in the name
of grace. and for the sake OF example. II you are
poor, do it in the name of honesty, and for the
sake of q pure conscience. And in either event
do it as an offering to delicacy, and the fitness OF
things.
Ii you have wedding presents, then most OF
them will come because the givers love you, aud
loving, desire TO give the gifts Of love. Treasure
them sacTedly, but on the wedding day send them
20 the bank, or hide them In the back attic, OF
push them under the bed, or put them 10 the re-
fngeTator, or do anything but shake them in the
face of the public, and say, Behold how pleased
l am with my rattle, how tickled with my straw
And, after marriage, save something from Del.
monico's for deep-sea bathing; and something
from Wallack's for West street and the Five
Points, and something from Madam Pinchon for
flowers and books and something from Stewards
for drives in the park; and you and your special
Adophus will be much less likely 10 talk Of q sep
arate maintenance than the wretched Florinas and
AdOlphuses who were welded before this article
was written.