The Crystal Wedding Anniversary

A crystal dinner celebrates the fifteenth anniversary. Cover the dining-table with your snowiest linen dining-cloth, using a block of clear crystal ice as the central decoration, a hollow cavity in the center of the block filled with a great cluster of fragrant blossoms.

If one be not fortunate enough to have inherited old- fashioned glass candelabra with long pendant prisms, four glass candlesticks with white candles should be used for illuminating the table, the shades being made from white frosted paper, with a fringe of small cut-glass beads.

As every possible device for using glass must be taken advantage of, small cut-glass and crystal dishes, containing peeled radishes (cut to represent roses), salted almonds and white bonbons should be arranged on the table to contribute to the crystal effect desired.
Strive to have the different courses harmonize with the dainty color scheme of the dinner, as follows:

Little neck clams, served on the half-shell in beds of cracked ice, with celery will make an acceptable first course, and cream of asparagus soup may follow. The meat course may consist of broiled chicken, accompanied by green peas and small Bermuda potatoes.

Lettuce, with white mayonnaise dressing and cream cheese wafers, should be served as the salad course; and meringue glac6, served on small cut-glass plates, with tiny frosted cakes, will furnish the dessert. The service may be planned after a formal dinner if desired.

Another menu, slightly wintrier in effect may be used in conjunction with the prism and glass icicle decorations, and also with evergreen boughs covered with tufts of cotton and diamond dust. Large and small glass beads may be strung here and there from the bows and icicles to simulate drops of water.

Let oyster bouillon be the first course, with snow-balls of whipped cream floating on top. Creamed chicken may follow in white paper cases, with white sandwiches. Celery salad is then served with a whipped cream mayonnaise, and cream cheese balls. Snow-balls of ice cream follow with white cakes, iced in balls and dusted with cocoanut.

A Soap-Bubble Party

For a crystal celebration, if you are fortunate enough to possess old-fashioned candelabra sconces with glass prisms, give them a prominent place in the drawing-room. The all-glass lamps are reasonable in price, attractive in shape, and although not cut, are quite as sparkling as their costlier relatives.

Have plenty of glass rose-bowls and tall, slender flower glasses filled with blossoms, placed here and there—on the piano, mantel, and table. Hang on the walls, flower-framed, all the mirrors available. This is as far as you can employ the fragile substance in your furnishing.

Now to proceed to the plan of entertainment for the evening. The most proper and prettiest scheme is a soap-bubble party. This may sound frivolous and childish, but “a little nonsense now and then,” etc. Besides, you must make it an exceptional bubble party.
Issue your invitations on sheets of isinglass, or on the clear celluloid which is known as glassine.

The words can be written with a ruling pen and liquid gold or silver or can be etched with a sharp steel point. The invitations can be mailed in the usual way.

Procure two large crystal bowls to hold the soap-bubble liquid, and as many glass tubes—six or seven inches long and about three- eighths of an inch in diameter—as your expected number of guests. The tubes can be purchased at any shop that keeps chemists' supplies, are cheap, and superior to pipes for bubble blowing.

Make a strong solution of white Castile soap cut in shavings, soft water and glycerin. The glycerin is used in the proportion of one teaspoonful to each quart of soap and water.

Perfume the Solution with violet extract and bottle it until ready for use. Bubbles made of that liquid last longer and are more brilliant in coloring than those blown with ordinary suds.

When your guests arrive select by lot from among them four judges. The bubble blowers must be divided into parties of four and should stand at one end of the room by the table on which rests the glass bowls of suds.

The judges must sit facing the blowers, and after the others have finished must also make a trial in order that they can become candidates for the prizes, of which there are six—three for the ladies and three for the gentlemen—one set for those who blow the largest number of bubbles with one tubful of suds, and one for the couple whose bubbles last the longest. The prizes must all be of glass but can be inexpensive articles.

The tubes, decorated each with a different colored bow of ribbon tied in the center, should be handed to the guests as they enter the drawing-room and can be kept for souvenirs.

When the bubbles have been blown and the prizes awarded, dancing or a musical may follow and a supper, more or less elaborate, bring the evening to a close.

The table decorations can be made very lovely at slight expense. A large mirror, bordered with smilax and ferns, should form the center. From the middle of this should rise a high glass 6pergne, filled with flowers.

If this is not available, piling glass cake can make a handsome centerpiece stands of graduated sizes one on top of another, crowning the pyramid with a slender wineglass. This will dress very effectively with flowers.

The table furnishings, with the exception of the napery and silverware, must be of glass. A novel and pretty ornament for one end can be made by forming the two anniversary dates of slender sprays of ferns, laying them on a flat, clear piece of ice, placing one piece on top of it and freezing the two together. Hollowed blocks of ice can also hold the salad, and four glass swans, one at each corner, can bear loads of glac6 nuts or fruits.

This illustration shows a table prepared for a crystal wedding anniversary, the food being served from the table. Over a circular- top table is spread silvered paper and over this an open lace spread. A crystal candelabrum with pink wax candles is wreathed with pink roses and foliage. Single crystal sticks are also placed at intervals.

All the bonbons, cakes, nut-meats, relishes, and jellies are placed on crystal dishes. The wedding-cake iced in white and pink and decorated with true-lover’s knots composed of crystallized fruit and also a wedding bell, should be cut by the bride. As a novelty, let the invitations have the dates and initials sprinkled with diamond powder and tied with iridescent baby ribbon. For a dinner, let the menu be written on the white paper which may now be had imitating frosted glass.

Jean Wilde Clark, Ed., "Wedding Anniversaries: The Crystal Wedding," in Weddings and Wedding Anniversaries: A Book of Good Form in the Conduct of Marriage Ceremonies . . . with Added Chapters about the Various Anniversaries, New York: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1910, p. 112.

Jean Wilde Clark, Ed., "Wedding Anniversaries: A Soap-Bubble Party," in Weddings and Wedding Anniversaries: A Book of Good Form in the Conduct of Marriage Ceremonies . . . with Added Chapters about the Various Anniversaries, New York: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1910, p. 113.