New-York tribune., 1908-04-12

man on such occasions-busy signing checks. A
trousseau similar TO Miss May Goelet's calls for
a $4,000 check and one resembling Miss Consuelo
Vanderbts $4,000. His eye falls upon such items
s100 for lingerie; one hat $50; shoes $780, gloves
$500; wedding gown. 5000; theatre gown, s. 100;
coat $3.50; ball gown, $3.50; four imported gowns
$4,000 duty them $500 extra), and so Oman in
terminable list Of things costing from hundreds
thousands, until he narvels how one woman can
wear 50 many clothes and where she Will stow
them, lacking barn for the purpose.
While some trousseaUs cost a great deal, the
average fashionable outfit runs from $1,000 10 SIS
600, for which sum girl can collect respectable
assortment Of apparel More than five hundred
American girls have married titles, but it is doubt
full if half dozen have carried abroad such trous
seaUs as the Duchess OF Marlborough and the
Countess Szechenyi.
II the brides father has a host of bills to pay
incidental to entertaining at a wedding as we'll as
for the actual ceremony and the gifts and outfit
the brides mother, in the capacity Of mother
in-aw, also often makes herself very useful in
deed. After one fashionable wedding the prelate
who tied the knot discovered that the bridegroom
who was poor but worthy. had handed him fee
in four figures in the sealed envelope wherein he
thought, reposed modest contribution Upon ex-
postulating with the young man for such extrav-
agance, that new-rnade benedict said that his
mother-in-law had given him the sealed envelope
TO present and left him in ignorance Of the amount
OF its contents.
Perhaps the largest fee ever given in this coun-
try that of 10000 which Mr. Maloney anded
10 Cardinal SatoIH upon the marriage of his
daughter at Spring Lake, y. J.. With the fee Mr.
Maloney also included sufficient to cover
all the expenses Of the Cardinals trip to America
Fifty dollars is the average fee which the bride
groom bestows upon the clergyman who opens the
door of marital felicity him, while a good many
people pay the officiating minister from $500 10
$1,000 for this service.
The cost of a modern fashionable wedding has
swollen proporuonately with the Celebrations now
considered Indispensable TO such a ceremony, and
many a couple, TO avoid the social limelight and
tribulations in which they exist for weeks before
the honeymoon, slip quietly and comfortably off
and married clandestinely, sure of an ex-
uberant parental blessing upon their return.
OF course, this way Of marrying precludes we'd
ding presents. The bride is not forced to the
necessity of sending of for sale thirty-odd large
pieces of silver for want of space in paatfal man
sion bank vaults in which to store them as one
young New York matron had 10 do. Brides of very
wealthy parents cannot well exchange superduous
gifts because they already possess more than they
make of, so the selling of costly wedding
gifts is quietly conducted in little. OF the way
shops.
Magnificent weddings demand magnificent gifts
and these often cost thousands Of dollars the gifts
aggregating fortune which has been known TO
reach the milIion-dollar mark
When Nellie Grant was married her wedding
presents valued at 10000 which was consid-
cred large So many brides have since then
for outdistanced this in the value OF their wedding
gifts that the wonder OF that time has become in
significant to-day.
Brides OF recent weddings have received neck
aces costing $4,000 and more; bracelets ornaments
jewelled bags. gold and silver table services and
paintings valued at thousands OF dollars. and so
many objets dart, pieces OF silver costly ar
ucles of use and adornment running up into the
hundreds to make society wonder when the limit
of extravaganza in wedding gifts will be reached
To stem this golden tide families have practically
ceased publishing the names Of givers with their
gifts. They rarely exhibit these at the wedding
(and then cards are removed), and II is growing
and more the custom 10 convey on wedding
invitations the intimation that gifts win not be re-
ceiVed.