The Dating Finder

Musicians can’t leave until the guests do, and musicians, remember, are paid by the hour. Food and beverages must be planned for a certain number of hours; in hotels, especially, the reception should not be extended beyond the time originally scheduled, the suite or room is usually engaged for a specific time. Besides, and perhaps most important, you don’t want to forget what time your train, ship or plane is leaving—although you might, of course, be staying in town for the night.
After the bride has thrown her bouquet and the time to depart has arrived, the bride and groom go to their respective dressing rooms to change into going away clothes (unless they are not changing—see Special Weddings). This one time in her life, if at no other, the bride should try to change her costume quickly. Guests are lingering to see her off. The groom can’t go downstairs until the bride is ready to go with him (at least he is not supposed to). When the two are ready, they should send someone to fetch the bride’s and groom’s parents and meet them outside their rooms in order to say goodbye privately. Then together they dash out to the waiting automobile amidst a shower of rose petals, rice or confetti, or all three.
Some believe that guests should (and do) begin to leave as soon as the bride has thrown her bouquet and left the reception to change her clothes—that not many remain to see her dash through a shower of rice and rose petals, while others maintain that guests do not have to stay until the bride leaves the reception, and advise the bride to wait until a fair number have left before she leaves to change her clothes, unless she needs to catch a train or plane.
This same authority also believes that when the bride leaves the reception to change her clothes, her mother, sister, maid of honor and all her bridesmaids should go with her and remain with her until she is ready to take off. We have found that it does not usually work out this way when bridesmaids are having fun dancing. Some of them come with her, but seldom all; the maid of honor usually does, and often her mother.
When the bride and groom are ready to go, both immediate families and all the bridesmaids and ushers should collect around them upstairs. After shaking hands with the ushers and kissing the others they go down stairs, usually preceded by excited bridesmaids crying “Here they come!” Rice and rose petals have previously been given to the guests, and running through the shower, the couple takes off.

The bride sometimes throws her bouquet from the top of a stairway, platform, balcony—whatever pictur-
esque spot is available. Usually she faces the girls as she tosses the bouquet. There is a custom in some localities where the bride stands with her back to the girls and tosses her bouquet over her right or her left shoulder—this is supposed to have something to do with future good luck and happiness. The meaning is different in different localities, as well as the choice of shoulder over which the bouquet is tossed. However, the one who catches the bouquet is supposed to be the next to marry. Immediately after this ceremony, the bride and groom both disappear in order to change their clothes.
In some localities there is the custom of the groom’s removing the blue satin garter from the bride and then tossing it among the assembled ushers. This is thought fun by some and frowned upon by others. If she knows this is to happen, the bride slips the garter quite far down on her leg toward her ankle because the groom is traditionally supposed to lift the hem of her wedding gown and pull the garter off himself.
If someone dear to the bride is ill and cannot attend the wedding, she might want to save her bouquet for that person. It is thoughtful to take the bouquet to her on the way to the train, or hotel, and the gift helps to make up for this dear one’s inability to see the bride in her wedding gown. If the bride and groom cannot stop with the bouquet, they can arrange to have it sent.
Often the bride plucks a few blossoms or petals from the bouquet before she throws it, which her mother will press for her.
It is permissible for the bride deliberately to toss her bouquet into the arms of her own unmarried sister, or the groom’s sister if she herself does not have one.
QUESTION 30: How is the “takeoff” for the honeymoon managed?
ANSWER: The bride and groom should decide in advance how long to stay at the reception in order that the traditional events may be timed and spaced appropriately before they must leave for the honeymoon. A reception may last from about an hour to several hours (in some countries they last several days, and in others even more than a month!). There must be a plan, however, because everything depends upon when the couple leaves. Guests are not supposed to depart until the bride and groom do.