Now, although we have told how the church wedding and the ordinary home
wedding are conducted, it does not follow that one may not have a much
simpler and yet a pretty wedding, with less "pomp and circumstance" and
consequent expense.
Wherever a girl has a home, she should be married from it. This is her
due, as "daughter of the house."
She may make the simplest possible preparations; may be married in her
best dress, not new for the occasion. She may omit all attendants, and
invite less than half a dozen of her friends; she may receive them herself
and at the appointed hour simply stand up and be married to a blushing
young man in a business suit, and afterwards cut her own cake, and then
proceed to her new home, which may be a little flat or a cottage. But she
should have the ceremony performed by a clergyman in her father's house.
If she has no parents, no home, merely a room in a boarding house, she and
her affianced may go to a clergyman's house and be married there. The
church and the law should sanction the rite; therefore she will not permit
herself to be married by a magistrate or a justice of the peace.
As for "sneaking off" and being married without the knowledge of one's
parents, this is both disrespectful and unkind--a poor return for their
care of her.
[MANNERS AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS 745]