The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-24
THE SHOW WEDDING.

so~ imitation, IN the example or
o,ber in Georgia who recently offer
~ her engaged daughter reward of
thousand dollars if she would go off
and get married without saying any
.hfra about it. To any one who has
.,.or assisted, in the French sense at
fashionable wedding-who has felt
.ha universe tremble in the balance
while the bride tried to make up her
mind whether she would be married at
home under a floral horseshoe, or at
c5urch in presence of the multitude,
who has laid awake at night trying to
satfle the awful problem of who should
he invited to the ceremony and who
m the house. and who has been
through the awful agony of trying to
decide between the relative merits of
bridesmaids who will make the we'd
ding a beauty show, but cause the
bride to look like thirty cents, and
namely maidens who will queer the
snectacle but who will make the bride
appear a Venus in comparison-eXemp-
non at any price is worth the money,
ana the mother who got it at thou
sand dollars got regular marked
down bargain in luxury.
Time was when modesty and priva-
CIV surrounded a marriage. Now the
nress agent is the most important per-
sonage at the wedding, and yet in the
length and breadth of human folly
there is no other thing that has less
TO Justly it than the prevailing mania
for a display wedding. People strain
after it, and starve for II, and go IN
debt for it, yet from the time cOu-
pIe enter a church to the shop worn
strains of Lohengrin to the time the
show is all over isn't ten minutes,
but it costs as much as to furnish a
cottage or support them fot a year.
Nowhere do the victims get SO little
run for their money.
To the everlasting credit of man let
II be said that the show wedding is
never his contriving. He is invariably
forced into it against his judgment
and in opposition to his wishes. He
knows that there is no other time and
Mace where a man is such an abSo-
lutely nonentity as at his own we'd
ding and when he consents to be
dragged up to the altar in the pres
ence of a horde of rubber-necking ac-
ouaintances and strangers it is the
final proof of his devotion and subjec-
tion If it ever occurred to anyone
to consult his desires in the matter
but il never does-there would he no
free show, with him playing second
fiddle to a long-tailed satin train.
OF course girls excuse their desire
for a display wedding by saying a
church wedding lis so solemn" Sol
emn, fiddlesticks! If there's anything
else in the world that is as absolute
mockery of everything holy and SOL
emn as a fashionable church wedding
I'd like to know what it is.
The audience not only regards it in
the light of a theatrical performance
for their benefit, but they conduct
themselves with lack of good man
ners and decorum they would not dare
to show in any decent playhouse in the
land. 1t is not unusual to see the sac
red edifce thronged with a mob of
well dressed people who not only
struggle for points of vantage, but
actually stand up on the pews to get
a better view of the spectacle at the
altar, while the bride, in going to and
from her carriage, must pass through
a street mob who know she is as
frankly on exhibition as a prize win
ner at a horse show, and who feel
privileged to audibly comment upon
her appearance.
If a girl is bound to end her maid
enhood with a spectacular perform
ance. by all means let her do it with
all the lime light thrown on, and the
orchestra playing soft music, but for
PHYS sake let's drop the pretense that
there is anything solemn about it.
Let's admit we do it for the show, and
stand on the inalienable right every
man and woman has to hire
hall and make an exhibition
Of themselves if they want to.
There may be church we'd
ding that is as solemn and sacred
as the most reverential soul could de-
sire, but il isn't the kind of a church
wedding that calls for the accompani-
ment of gaping crowds and white sat
in, and palms that are hauled in from
the dance house. 1t is where the
house of God is empty of all save His
presence where only the two or three
who are nearest or dearest to the
bride and groom are gathered about
the priest at the altar, and where the
very absence of the motley throng
that make up our every day world
sets the hour apart as something in
hnltely sacred and lonely-lonely as ev-
cry human soul must be in the great
crisis of its fate. But do you ever hear
OF the girl who talks so glibly about
wanting a church wedding because it
IS so Solemn" wanting that kind of
church wedding? Well, 1 guess not!
If woman had never been at a
display church wedding and had new
eF heard the comments on the bridal
party and the general arrangements,
one might possibly understand her
hankering after the fleeing pleasure
Oh for once in her life being the whole
snow. But every woman has been to
dozen of weddings. She has heard the
uhkind comments. She has taken part
N them herself, and one would think
mat nothing short of wild horses, or
lhe FEAR of being left an old maid
would drag her up the aisle to the al
Laf' with her dear 500 friends bonn
parding her with their criticisms as
sAe went. Haven't we all heard some
H,iig Ike this a thousand times:
GOOD gracious, haven't they come
yer I should think anybody who
Us Us been out in society as long as
-lsHSa Sanders would know enough
t nol 10 keep people waiting. She's
t oseh ready to marry so long she ought
nave been ready for the wedding.
hda time enough. didn't she? Te-
Who's the bridegroom? Oh, /
Ioh know. Named Browan, or
.tto"an, or Cowan, or something like
SIat; l don't remember which. Some
D'gy you never heard of. Clerk in
Ddnk l believe. Isn't it ridiculous
.oI people like that to spend so much
-.2uey on big church wedding? The
N'ie family will have to live on
el@fVation fare for the next six months