A MOCK WEDDING

A mock wedding is a funny way to celebrate one of the numerous early wedding anniversaries, especially if a group of young married women friends want to join in a surprise.

The bride may be invited to a chum’s house and presently the procession may appear before her.

The bride should have a cheesecloth or mosquito netting veil with dried orange peel to hold the folds in place, and she should carry a bouquet of white chicken feathers tied with white tape—­the shower part can be little bows of rags.

The bridesmaids might all wear the cheapest of farmers’ hats, with huge bunches of goldenrod or asters on them or else such things as little kitchen utensils sewed on the front in place of flowers.  Bouquets of burdock tied with colored cretonne would be attractive for them, or possibly as a substitute for the conventional shepherds’ crooks they could carry umbrellas with big bows on the handles.  A third suggestion for the bridesmaids is that they carry grape baskets filled with none too choice outdoor flowers and weeds.

There should be a flower girl, of course, who can wear an abbreviated costume.  Her hair should be in ringlets with a big ribbon tied around her head, and she may carry a market basket filled with scraps of paper, or flowers if you prefer, to scatter in front of the bride.

The ring bearer may carry a curtain ring on a sofa cushion.

At the ceremony, of course, you must omit all the really solemn parts, but you may let someone make up some questions for the minister to use.  For instance, he may say to the mock bridegroom, “Do you promise to obey this woman?” Instead of saying, “I will” and “I do,” they may say, “I wilt” and “I doth.”

For a wedding breakfast, you might serve creamed codfish in heavy crockery, and follow it with helpings of cream of wheat either cold or hot, which can be served to resemble ice cream in little paper cases.  There should be a wedding cake which may be only ginger-bread, and some kind of grotesque motto may be inscribed in the frosting.

A SILVER WEDDING SHOWER

A little group, girlhood friends of more than twenty-five years standing, recently planned a pleasant shower for a popular friend, the president, as it happened, of their fortnightly sewing club, on her silver wedding anniversary.

None of the ladies was rich and the gifts were planned to cost not over fifty cents each.  Many of them were less than that.

Silver fittings for a work basket were chosen and included a silver needle case, a silver thimble case, a silver hem gauge, a unique tatting shuttle, a little silver ripping knife, a cunning strawberry emery with a silver hull and a wee wax cherry with a silver stem.

The gifts were wrapped in white tissue paper, tied with silver cord with a tiny shining bell inserted in the center of each knot.  They were presented in a lovely sweet grass sewing basket, which in turn was wrapped and tied with silver ribbon.