Some brides prefer to remove their left glove by merely pulling it inside out at the altar.  Usually the under seam of the wedding finger of her glove is ripped for about two inches and she need only pull the tip off to have the ring put on.  Or, if the wedding is a small one, she wears no gloves at all.

Brides have been known to choose colors other than white.  Cloth of silver is quite conventional and so is very deep cream, but cloth of gold suggests the habiliment of a widow rather than that of a virgin maid—­of which the white and orange blossoms, or myrtle leaf, are the emblems.

If a bride chooses to be married in traveling dress, she has no bridesmaids, though she often has a maid of honor.  A “traveling” dress is either a “tailor made” if she is going directly on a boat or train, or a morning or afternoon dress—­whatever she would “wear away” after a big wedding.

But to return to our particular bride; everyone seemingly is in her room, her mother, her grandmother, three aunts, two cousins, three bridesmaids, four small children, two friends, her maid, the dressmaker and an assistant.  Every little while, the parlor-maid brings a message or a package.  Her father comes in and goes out at regular intervals, in sheer nervousness.  The rest of the bridesmaids gradually appear and distract the attention of the audience so that the bride has moments of being allowed to dress undisturbed.  At last even her veil is adjusted and all present gasp their approval:  “How sweet!” “Dearest, you are too lovely!” and “Darling, how wonderful you look!”

Her father reappears:  “If you are going to have the pictures taken, you had better all hurry!”

“Oh, Mary,” shouts some one, “what have you on that is

    Something old, something new,
    Something borrowed, something blue,
    And a lucky sixpence in your shoe!”

“Let me see,” says the bride, “‘old,’ I have old lace; ‘new,’ I have lots of new!  ‘Borrowed,’ and ’blue’?” A chorus of voices:  “Wear my ring,” “Wear my pin,” “Wear mine!  It’s blue!” and some one’s pin which has a blue stone in it, is fastened on under the trimming of her dress and serves both needs.  If the lucky sixpence (a dime will do) is produced, she must at least pay discomfort for her “luck.”

Again some one suggests the photographer is waiting and time is short.  Having pictures taken before the ceremony is a dull custom, because it is tiring to sit for one’s photograph at best, and to attempt anything so delaying as posing at the moment when the procession ought to be starting, is as trying to the nerves as it is exhausting, and more than one wedding procession has consisted of very “dragged out” young women in consequence.

At a country wedding it is very easy to take the pictures out on the lawn at the end of the reception and just before the bride goes to dress.  Sometimes in a town house, they are taken in an up-stairs room at that same hour; but usually the bride is dressed and her bridesmaids arrive at her house fully half an hour before the time necessary to leave for the church, and pictures of the group are taken as well as several of the bride alone—­with special lights—­against the background where she will stand and receive.