When it is time for the ring, the best man produces it from his pocket. If
in the handling from best man to groom, to clergyman, to groom again, and
finally to the bride's finger, it should slip and fall, the best man must
pick it up if he can without searching; if not, he quietly produces the
duplicate which all careful best men carry in the other waistcoat pocket,
and the ceremony proceeds. The lost ring--or the unused extra one--is
returned to the jeweler's next day. Which ring, under the circumstances,
the bride keeps, is a question as hard to answer as that of the Lady or
the Tiger. Would she prefer the substitute ring that was actually the one
she was married with? Or the one her husband bought and had marked for
her? Or would she prefer not to have a substitute ring and have the whole
wedding party on their knees searching? She alone can decide. Fortunately,
even if the clergyman is very old and his hand shaky, a substitute is
seldom necessary.
The wedding ring must not be put above the engagement ring. On her wedding
day a bride either leaves her engagement ring at home when she goes to
church or wears it on her right hand.
=AFTER THE CEREMONY=
At the conclusion of the ceremony, the minister congratulates the new
couple. The organ begins the recessional. The bride takes her bouquet from
her maid of honor (who removes the veil if she wore one over her face).
She then turns toward her husband--her bouquet in her right hand--and puts
her left hand through his right arm, and they descend the steps.
The maid of honor, handing her own bouquet to a second bridesmaid, follows
a short distance after the bride, at the same time stooping and
straightening out the long train and veil. The bride and groom go on down
the aisle. The best man disappears into the vestry room. At a perfectly
conducted wedding he does not walk down the aisle with the maid of honor.
The maid of honor recovers her bouquet and walks alone. If a bridesmaid
performs the office of maid of honor, she takes her place among her
companion bridesmaids who go next; and the ushers go last.
The best man has meanwhile collected the groom's belongings and dashed out
of the side entrance and around to the front to give the groom his hat and
stick. Sometimes the sexton takes charge of the groom's hat and stick and
hands them to him at the church door as he goes out. But in either case
the best man always hurries around to see the bride and groom into their
carriage, which has been standing at the entrance to the awning since she
and her father alighted from it.
All the other conveyances are drawn up in the reverse order from that in
which they arrived. The bride's carriage leaves first, next come those of
the bridesmaids, next the bride's mother and father, next the groom's
mother and father, then the nearest members of both families, and finally
all the other guests in the order of their being able to find their
conveyances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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