On the Best of Humour

Otago Witness, Issue 4030, 9 June 1931, Page 68

On the Best of Humour

( Copyright.—Fok the Otago Witness.)

ABOUT FASHIONABLE WEDDINGS

By

P. G. WODEHOUSE.

Fashionable weddings! What pictures; what memories the words conjure up! The bride with her set, determined face. The bridegroom, trying in vain to break the jiu-jitsu hold of the best man. The ushers endeavouring to persuade the distant connection with the ticket numbered Z-19 that she is not entitled to a ringside seat. The maids of honour, whispering that poor dear Hildegonde never did look well in white, but charitably reminding one another that she has a sweet disposition, and that it is rathef; her misfortune than her fault that het', hair is that curious shade. •’£

Many changes, have taken place bt late in the procedure of smart weddings, and if-the Book of Etiquette pn which you rely to steer you through the difficult waters of social life was published more than three or four years back, you are liable to do the things that you ought not to do or to leave undone the things that should have been done.

This remark applies not only to the ordinary wedding guest, but even to the officiating clergyman. Owing to the ever-increasing popularity of divorce and the confusion caused by the fact that our divorce laws differ in different States—so that the dissolution of a marriage is recognised in one State, but not in another—it is now the custom in the best circles for the clergyman to provide himself with a species of chart or war-map, which he consults at the critical moment of the ceremony. I was usher at a wedding recently, both the parties to which had previously made several false starts in the matrimonial handicap, and when the bishop who was officiating solemnly addressed the groom with the words, “ Wilt thou, Twombley, take this Genevieve to be thy wedded wife; in sickness and in health, in Pennsylvania and •- in Massachusetts, in Nevada, Colorado, and all points west?” there was not a dry eye in the church. It is not the fashion nowadays to have detectives at wedding receptions. It was a pretty custom, and it is a pity in some ways that it has died out. for there were few things more cheering to the thoughtful guest than the spectacle of an earnest ? a nd persevering sleuth arresting the bride’s rich uncle' from the west, as nearly always happened. But the growing hideousness of -wedding presents lias made the passing of the detective inevitable. No sane bri'’c and bridegroom would deliberately put obstacles in the way of the removal of the ghastly things given them by fpien Is who had not the presence of mind to leave the country, before the wedding invitation reached them. The. practice now is to encourage j.> -,-ery way the looting of the pres- , >”i, and many kleptomaniacs have, »• ■■■■ from the c...,i under which their, unfortunate

failing had placed them. They are now invited everywhere, with the tacit understanding that they do not shirk their merciful work. I for my part can think of no prettier sight than that of a young bride smiling encouragement on one of these helpful persons as he staggers from the room beneath the weight of a pair of massive ormolu vases, or of a young bridegroom thoughtfully helping his guest to wedge a silver loving-cup into his overcoat pocket. Some' of the very smartest people go even farther and enlist professional aid—-a custom that has led to a considerable uplift among the members of the underworld, who are rapidly acquiring tone as the result of being invited to so many fashionable weddings in order to steal the presents. Indeed, this growing familiarity with our best families has led to an epidemic of the broad A among the personnel of the Hudson Dusters that has l»een something of a puzzle to our local constabulary.

.Curiously enough, the rejected suitor has ceased (almost as completely as the detective) to be a feature of the best weddings. A few years ago, a bride thought very poorly of herself if she could not muster among her wedding guests half a dozen or .more discarded suitors. Occasionally, this would lead to a pretty spontaneous effect, as when young Clarence de Peyster blew his brains out with one hand while shaking the bride’s hand with the other at the Bootle—Bartholomew wedding reception: The incident was the talk of the town for quite a time, and undoubtedly did much to establish, the newly-married pair in the secure social position they now enjoy.

But too few rejected suitors a are like poor de Peyster. It is, perhaps, asking too much for a young man to commit suicide simply in order to make a wedding reception go off well, bnt at least it is not unreasonable to expect him to exhibit a decent gloom. It is the failure of the modern rejected suitor to do this .that has led to his exclusion from most wedding receptions nowadays. He has developed a habit of thanking the groom publicly in . a loud voice as his benefactor. -

Everybody will remember the painful scene at the Mumbleby4—Packsmith wedding, when, just as Sigismund Mumbleby, the well-known clubman and owner of the Bronxville National League Checkers Team, was insisting on replying in the affirmative to the obviously sceptical query of the presiding clergyman as to whether he really intended to take this woman ‘’(many years his senior and far r, om nrenosspßcing in appearance) for his wedded wife, the voice of a Mr Phipps, from the back of the sacred edifice, cried in tones of sincere selfcongratulation. “There, but for the grace of you. my friend, goes Henry Murgatroyd Phipps! ”

Of recent years the popularity of the home wedding has grown till it now threatens to make the church wedding a thing of the past. I, personally, am a strong advocate of th 6 wedding '.in the home. It has numerous obvious advantages; principally, of course, the fact that you are closer to the refreshments. It is not, however, without its drawbacks. I cannot impress too strongly upon young people who are thinking of being married in the ancestral apartment of the advisability of disconnecting the telephone before the ceremony begins. Nothing looks worse than to have the bridegroom, just when the cue is: coming for his big line, called away by an imperious summons from an ex-flame of his in a musical comedy chorus. It requires more tact than the average bridegroom possesses to enable him to resume the proceedings without having caused a certain uneasiness among his assembled friends and relations. Another drawback is the fact that in the modern apartment house, which is of necessity in a congested metropolis the scene of so many home weddings, the walls are, as a rule, remarkably thin. It does not conduce to the dignity and empressement of the ceremony when the clergyman’s address is punctuated with such remarks—muffled, no doubt, but always clearly audible—as ■“ Nits and gnats,” “ Queens and Fishhooks,” “Thirty-mile! ” “All pink!” “ Three janes and a pair of bullets ” — and other ejaculations inseparable from our great national indoor game. Nor is it a situation wholly free from embarrassment when, just as the hired violinist is striking up “ The Voice That Breathed O’er Eden,” somebody on the floor above turns on his radio with “ The Varsity Drag.” The practice of holding rehearsals of the actual wedding ceremony is one that is finding increased favour in these advanced days. It has many obvious advantages, notably the fact that it enables the bride to lessen the inevitable shock to her betrothed by administering her relations to him in small doses instead of in one enormous lump. It will be found that by the time he has become inured to her various aunts and cousins, he is in a more favourable position for bearing up against her Uncle Paul from Junction City. But I could write forever about weddings. There is no more fascinating subject. Whether it be the first wedding of a this year’s debutante or 'the latest of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, it cannot fail to stir the emotions of the most stolid readers. It is the turning-point in two lives.

And let all patriotic Americans remember that every wedding that is solemnised has in it a possible—even a probable—impetus for the See America First movement, turning as it docs, the minds of the contracting parties from the effete attractions of Europe—since Paris has cut the American quota—to the more bracing charms of Reno.