Crystal Wedding (Anniversary today)

This comes from the Ladies' Home Journal ©1893

THE CRYSTAL WEDDING
THE fifteenth anniversary may be effectively celebrated by an '' afternoon tea" out-of-doors, if the "happy pair" be the fortunate possessors of a lawn and shade trees. A few little tables in sheltered nooks—and a larger one for the more important dishes—are suggestive of pleasure at first sight. In the centre of the large table I would place a cut-glass dish, holding a mass of red roses.
As one is confined to glass dishes for everything at a crystal wedding its lack of color is better supplemented by red flowers than those of other shades.
A glass dish or vase filled with roses, geraniums or carnations might ornament each of the little tables, for the lavish month of June is so prodigal of blossoms.
It is the custom in Russia to serve tea in very thin glasses, in preference to cups, and as it is taken with lemon, instead of cream, it is much more dainty in appearance. The Austrians also prefer glasses to cups for their coffee, and the habit once formed 110 cup seems thin enough. Any excuse to use glass is admissible. The lemonade and ices are, of-course, served in tumblers and glass saucers. Instead of sugar for the tea and coffee the crystals of white rock candy may be used, and are no mean substitute. A profusion of cut glass on the large table makes, of course, an attractive decoration in itself, but the pressed glass now imitates it very nearly and is wonderfully cheap.
Should a dinner be preferred every possible device for using glass should be taken advantage of.
A large piece of looking-glass bordered with red roses, or other flowers if desired, may be placed on the table, a glass bowl of flowers in the centre. If one be not fortunate enough to have inherited old fashioned glass candlesticks with long pendent prisms, ordinary glass ones are cheap and easily procured. The shades may have a fringe of cut-glass beads around them, that, catching the light, has a pretty, prismatic effect.
For name-cards small, round, beveled mirrors, three inches in diameter, may be easily inscribed with the names of the guests in any colored ink preferred. Wreaths of tiny blossoms painted along the edges would, of course, greatly enhance their beauty. Should these prove too expensive a simple white card, around the edges of which crystal beads are thickly sewed, forming a sort of a frame, may not be an unacceptable substitute.