As ushers and bridesmaids are chosen only from close friends of the bride and groom, it is scarcely necessary to suggest how to word the asking! Usually they are told that they are expected to serve at the time the engagement is announced, or at any time as they happen to meet. If school or college friends who live at a distance are among the number, letters are necessary. Such as: "Mary and I are to be married on the tenth of November, and, of course, you are to be an usher." Usually he adds: "My dinner is to be on the seventh at eight o'clock at ----," naming the club or restaurant. It is unheard of for a man to refuse--unless a bridegroom, for snobbish reasons, asks some one who is not really a friend at all. =BRIDE'S USHER AND GROOM'S BRIDESMAID= A brother of the bride, or if she has no brother, then her "favorite cousin" is always asked by the groom to be usher out of compliment to her. The bride returns the compliment by asking the sister of the groom who is nearest her own age, to be bridesmaid, or if he has no sister, she asks a cousin or even occasionally shows her courtesy by asking the groom to name a particular friend of his. The bride in asking her does not say: "Will you be one of my bridesmaids because Jim wants me to ask you." If the bridesmaid is not a particular friend of the bride, she knows perfectly that it is on Jim's account that she has been asked. It is the same with the bride's usher. The groom merely asks him as he asks all of the others. When a foreigner marries an American girl, his own friends being too distant to serve, the ushers are chosen from among the friends of the bride. =BRIDEGROOM HAS NO TROUSSEAU= A whole outfit of new clothes is never considered necessary for a bridegroom, but shabby ones are scarcely appropriate. Whatever his wardrobe may stand in need of should be bought, if possible. He should have, not necessarily new, plenty of good shirts of all kinds, handkerchiefs, underwear, pajamas, socks, ties, gloves, etc., and a certain number of fresh, or as good as new, suits of clothes. There was a wedding not long ago which caused quite a lot of derisive comment because the groom's mother provided him with a complete and elaborate trousseau from London, enormous trunks full of every sort of raiment imaginable. That part of it all was very nice; her mistake was in inviting a group of friends in to see the finery. The son was so mortified by this publicity that he appeared at the wedding in clothes conspicuously shabby, in order to counteract the "Mama's-darling-little-newly-wed" effect that the publicity of her generous outlay had produced. It is proper and fitting for a groom to have as many new clothes as he needs, or pleases, or is able to get--but they are never shown to indiscriminate audiences, they are not featured, and he does not go about looking "dressed up." =THE WEDDING CLOTHES OF THE BRIDEGROOM=