Wedding Belles

Introduction

Photographs, Trail End Brides (Trail End Collection) When Clara Diana Cumming married Manville Kendrick in 1929, she followed many of the same customs and rituals followed by Ida Josephine Peeler - Manville's grandmother - when she married Charles William Wulfjen in 1869. Neither may have known why she was doing what she was doing, but since her mother and all her other relatives had done it, it was good enough for her!

In addition to adhering to wedding traditions, each bride associated with Trail End – Eula Wulfjen Kendrick, Rosa-Maye Kendrick Harmon, Diana Cumming Kendrick, Lucy Booth Cumming, Eula Williams Cumming, Mattie Wulfjen Williams and Ida Peeler Wulfjen – also followed the etiquette and manners of her time, thus ensuring that her special day was filled with joy. By the time Diana and her sister-in-law Rosa-Maye Kendrick married in the 1920s, these points of etiquette had been codified by Emily Post in her seminal 1922 publication, Etiquette.

“Wedding Belles & Beaux” uses the experiences of the Kendrick family brides and others to show what weddings were like between 1869 and 1929. It examines traditions and customs through the ages, and why we follow certain routines on that most special of days: the wedding day.