Although old-line Baptists and the more uptight Methodists deplore the unity candle—a relatively new feature at the Delta wedding—they have been powerless to snuff it out. Indeed, perhaps the single most compelling reason for discerning parents to join St. James’ Episcopal Church before it is too late is that God’s Frozen People would just as soon torch their house of worship as permit a tacky old unity candle. It should be noted that several Baptist churches have come perilously close to being transformed into the fiery furnace of Old Testament fame because they do allow the unity candle. Where are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when you really need them… as firefighters?
Though one prominent Baptist wedding guru describes the unity candle as “nothing but trouble,” all too many Delta brides would prefer living in sin to getting married without one. Let the snoots persist in viewing the precious candle as the ultimate sin—or, as they would no doubt put it, the ultimate faux pas—these brides demand that special Flick Your Bic moment before embarking on the marital path. The idea behind the unity candle is simple—and sentimental, which is why it has made no headway among our stodgier citizens. It is said that two grooms have a better chance of being united at dear old St. James’ than a bride and groom with a unity candle.
According to unity candle protocol, the mothers of the bride and groom ascend the steps to the sanctuary and light small candles before they take their places. Shortly before they are “pronounced” (in the parlance of Baptist wedding gurus), the bride and groom light one big candle—“that big fat ugly candle,” as one disgruntled bridal adviser puts it—which is the unity candle, each taking a light from the appropriate maternal flame. The ceremony can be further drawn out if the bride and groom choose to present roses to their respective mothers on the way down the aisle, whispering, “I love you,” ostentatiously mouthing the words.
All this folderol is supposed to symbolize the joining of the two families. As symbolism, however, the unity candle needs some rethinking. For example, what does it symbolize when, as all too often happens, the candles flatly refuse to be lighted? Or when they flicker dangerously low and then blow out during the ceremony? Every now and then a unity candle flops over and falls on the floor. One hapless bride’s gown caught on fire and the ceremony had to be halted until the fire was stamped out by frantic members of the wedding party. The lighting ceremony can be accompanied by a hymn, and no matter what hymn the bride picks, the unity candle will find a way to make it the wrong song: If it’s a short hymn, the candle just won’t be lit and you have the mother trying to perform her incendiary task in utter silence after the hymn is completed. “You Light Up My Life,” a popular Baptist wedding tune, inevitably has people thinking: Don’t light up my life, just light that blankety-blank candle so we can get on with this wedding. If a longish hymn has been chosen, the candle always seems to burst into flames on the first attempt, which can make “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” an old-fashioned number, feel like several hours. Mortified mothers sometimes hold up the procession fiddling with a wily wick. Once, when a mother faced a particularly challenging wick, the Baptist preacher had to step in and rescue her. Gently moving her aside, he ignited the candle himself—with his cigarette lighter. This was perhaps not a wise idea—you could see what the congregation, previously unaware that their spiritual leader was a nicotine-addled devotee of the Satanic weed, was thinking: Next thing you know, Brother Gillis is going to take up dancing.
While some innocent brides can be forgiven for inflicting the awkwardness of a unity candle on the unsuspecting flock, one bridal consultant has yet to summon Christian charity toward a bride who, in the consultant’s opinion, had no right whatsoever to the unity candle. She and the groom had already unified, as was quite obvious from her bulging condition. Don’t believe an Empire waistline can conceal everything. That must be why the unity candle fell over on her head. “Served her right,” said the still-bitter bridal consultant.
For guests from more scripted liturgical traditions, the second-least favorite moment of a Baptist wedding comes when the bride and groom, now husband and wife, turn around to leave the church and the preacher says, “And now presenting Mr. and Mrs. John Doe…” to tumultuous applause and the occasional catcall. At one such wedding, the bride and groom were “presented” as Mr. and Mrs. Girl’s Last Name. Seems the father of the bride was what is known in Southern idiom as “a big Baptist,” and the preacher made a little Freudian slip!
All Southern towns of any size have an elite Baptist set, recognized in the community as society Baptists, starchy stalwarts of the community who aren’t any fonder of the nefarious unity candle than traditionalists in other denominations. The social Baptists are confronted by the same blond wood pews—for some reason, Baptists love blond wood—and odd geography (there is no central aisle, and the bride must come in from the left) that beset humbler members of their faith. But they surmount these obstacles with aplomb. They try to pretend the TV camera (for broadcasting the minister’s sermon) isn’t there and substitute “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for a schmaltzy solo rendition of the Lord’s Prayer, otherwise the hallmark of the Baptist wedding. Incongruously enough, Baptists also like Ave Maria, hailed in one Baptist newspaper write-up as Ava Maria, which sounds suspiciously like one of those double-barreled Southern girl’s names.
The society Baptists choose fresh flowers over the eternal flowers popular at other Baptist weddings. (Fresh flowers are particularly useful in disguising the immersion pool.) Brother Gillis is quietly (but firmly) informed that he’d better keep his extemporaneous remarks to a minimum.
One of the greatest Delta weddings of yesteryear was, in fact, that of a social Baptist, whose family decked the Baptist church of Leland in so many flowers that nobody saw a speck of blond wood. There were bouquets on the rails leading into the church and a canopy of roses overhead. The bride wore a gown from Worth in Paris, which looked all the more beautiful in the shimmering glow from the cathedral candles. “It was so beautiful, it didn’t look like a Baptist wedding,” said a disloyal Leland Baptist. There was one small imperfection in planning: The preacher was stationed directly below one of the larger candles, and it dripped globs of hot wax onto his bald head throughout the service. At least it wasn’t a unity candle!
Although there are more Baptist churches than liquor stores in Greenville, non-Baptists find Baptists exotic. We are fascinated with two aspects of Baptist life: their drinking habits—we’ll get to that in a second—and their famous immersion pool. When Polly Billings, the daughter of one of Greenville’s most upright families among the social Baptists, showed her little friends the immersion pool one Saturday, they couldn’t have been more titillated if they’d been to an adult book store. An erstwhile Methodist decided to take the dip last year because of his lady friend. “She didn’t want to commit adultery with somebody who wasn’t a Baptist,” he explained. First Baptist, by the way, is the church that attracts the doctors and lawyers and more erudite of the local Baptists. But some of the blue-haired Sunday school teachers, sweet though they are, could be more learned. Dr. Billings realized that he had a burgeoning Episcopalian or Presbyterian on his hands when Margaret Billings came home from Sunday school and announced that old Mrs. Hicks had taught the lesson about Simon the Leapfrog that morning in Sunday school. Maybe the old lady got Jeremiah the prophet confused with Jeremiah the bullfrog and threw in Simon Peter for good measure?
When people in the Delta receive an invitation to a Baptist wedding, social or otherwise, their first question is: Will they serve liquor? Episcopalians in particular are convinced that the main reason Baptists don’t drink is to annoy Episcopalians. A deacon of the First Baptist Church was chosen as king of the Queen of Hearts Ball, one of Greenville’s highest social honors, a few years ago. When King Deacon insisted that the demon rum (and all other demons of an alcoholic nature) be banished from the king’s table, Mr. Buddy Gilliam angrily insisted that the deacon had been a Baptist all his life just to avoid paying a liquor bill for that one night!
Alternative dogma on Baptists: They are all secret drinkers. “Or they think it’s a secret,” huffs a prominent matron of another faith. One of our town’s favorite Baptist jokes: Where do Baptists not recognize each other? At the liquor store. Of course, this is a canard and not in the least bit fair—many Delta Baptists, being as much Delta as Baptist, do drink, and openly. The rule: If a Baptist reception is at the Fellowship Hall, it will be dry, as dry as Pharaoh’s desert, but if it is elsewhere, alcoholic beverages will likely flow like the river Jordan.
We must point out that there are exceptions to this rule. A nice Baptist family was hosting a reception in the Fellowship Hall a few years ago, and one of the guests, partaking from his flask in the parking lot (a parking lot is sort of a bar for Baptists), became inspired with an idea of how to enliven the affair. He staggered into the Fellowship Hall and tossed his flask into the mint-green punch, in that instant ensuring it became the first (and last) spiked punch served in the Fellowship Hall. Even if it did seem to enhance fellowship.
At a country club reception in another Delta town, the Baptist hosts had removed all the liquor bottles from the shelves in the bar. Even looking at the stuff might tempt you to sin. The food was lovely and elaborate, washed down with iced tea and water (without even a lemon wedge!). The band was playing, but no one was dancing. We thought it was because everybody was stone-cold sober. But then it dawned on us: Dancing is a sin. That must be why the Baptist girls are always the best dancers—a soupçon of sin makes any activity more fun. “Baptist girls are sugar-coated hellcats with two hollow legs,” says an appreciative member of male society. Baptists, of course, are very serious about their faith, and that is why we all worried that a prominent Baptist dentist, a particularly observant citizen, was trying to send us subliminal Baptist messages while he worked on our teeth. Of course, there was nothing subliminal about it—it was the scenes from the Bible painted on the ceiling above the dental chair combined with the Demerol that turned our thoughts to higher matters.
A Baptist wedding, with fresh flowers and traditional hymns, perhaps outside with a gentle breeze rippling through the trees, can be a quintessential Delta experience—but, because the ceremony is not as by-the-book as it is in other denominations, Baptists must think things through with particular attention to detail. One of our sweetest brides wanted to honor her late grandmother, a popular Greenville matriarch. She decided to have Granny’s favorite hymn sung at her wedding. The bride and groom stood, hand in hand, gazing meaningfully into each other’s eyes, as the soloist belted out “I’d Rather Have Jesus.”
An oddity of the Delta bride is that she loves to sing—sometimes at her own wedding. One Greenville socialite insisted upon an elaborate wedding, held at an ancestral residence with an imposing staircase—at the top of which she sang “O Perfect Love, All Human Thought Transcending,” before stepping back to take her father’s arm and all the stairs descending. A memorable moment, to say the least.
We know another bride who dreamed of a wedding in a beautiful country chapel. She had forgotten that a big train runs past the little church every day—at the precise moment the couple was to recite their vows. Nobody heard a word they said. The engine not only drowned out their promises before God, its rumbling also caused a large floral cross to fall from on high in the sanctuary.
A wedding is never the time to be creative. We, for example, might have advised Phyllis Philpot, a Methodist bride from Rolling Fork, Mississippi, that having the ring bearer carry the ring up the aisle on deer’s antlers does not constitute impeccable taste. But she didn’t ask us. We might also have counseled restraint for the couple who, as did another pair mentioned earlier, insisted upon being married on horseback. “The ceremony was somewhat different,” the newspaper reported, “in that the minister, as a favor of the bride and groom, offered to all those attending who wished to an opportunity to renew their vows.” That’s what he thought was different?
Baptists, as you may be beginning to see, all too often go in for so many special effects that you almost expect the credits to roll as the couple walks down the aisle—wedding by Cecil B. DeBaptist. A Baptist wedding in Clarksdale, for example, featured soloists stationed in the sanctuary and others leaning over the balcony—voices from heaven?—who sang back and forth. Needless to say, all wore microphones, which somehow did not add to the overall aesthetic effect. An elevated platform had been built at the center pew (prime seating) to hold the video equipment—as if anybody could ever forget this wedding. A word about videographers: They are wedding villains, always popping out from the palms in the sanctuary to capture—or ruin—some magic moment. The video of the wedding has become more important than the wedding—as clearly illustrated by the pregnant bride who waited until after her child was born to wed the father. She wanted to look slim in her wedding video. In the old days, we had Flash Carson, the town’s society lens man, ambling up and down the aisle, setting off his eponymous bulbs at the most inopportune times. That was bad enough. Immortalizing a wedding today seems to demand a fleet of equipment-wielding techies. It’s enough to make us pine for the simpler days of Flash.
There is also the perfectly nice wedding that goes bad in the telling of it. A recent write-up of a “storybook wedding” praised a wedding coordinator who “orchestrated the enormous task of placement of so many tents and executive bathrooms to adhere to the wishes of the bride’s mother not to cut down any trees.”
We may feel we’ve been to an elegant wedding when the rental agency from Jackson has to bring potties—but it’s not necessary to read about potty placement in the newspaper. Nor are we interested in post-reception details about the newlyweds. When Maribelle Gordon married that lout Harwood Swinton, we did not need to know that “around midnight, the bride and groom slipped away to the Marriott.” “I’m just glad Mama didn’t live to read that,” said Miss Ardelia Stovall, Maribelle’s aunt.
One other tip: If you’re going to wear something tacky to your own wedding, there is no need to inform the whole world and posterity. We are hoping that one man we know will burn his wedding write-up so that his children will never know that he wore—and we quote—“a polyester double knit suit designed by Pierre Cardin with appropriate accessories and black leather Italian boots” to the “after reception.” Please, if you know what an “after reception” is, don’t tell us.
A morning coffee party is one of the nicest ways to entertain a bride. Baptists particularly dote on this alcohol-free mode of celebrating a betrothal. Could that be because they feel better than the rest of us in the morning hours? For a recent bridal party, the hostess served coffee in the dining room and lemonade in the garden. A striped tent had been erected because the older ladies, not a generation of sun-worshippers, otherwise would have baked. A delicious coffee and marshmallow concoction (see here for recipe) was served in antique demitasse cups with silver demitasse spoons. The mixture was chosen in honor of the well-known Baptist fondness for cooking with itty-bitty marshmallows, their signature ingredient in festive dishes. We think the white, fluffy ’mallows remind them of being pure as the driven snow. The garnish was flavored whipped cream (no alcohol!) and chocolate shavings. You can make this two days in advance, if you have enough refrigerator space.
Needless to say, there were our ubiquitous fried walnuts (here) and cheese straws (without which the proper Delta hostess cannot entertain). Everything else was passed by the hostesses and their friends, with the exception of the coffee. The coffee was poured from a silver coffeepot that was part of an old silver service (a silver service was once the standard, big-ticket wedding present for all brides, but what with the skyrocketing silver prices, that is but a memory!). It was placed at one end of the dining table. At the other end of the table, on a matching tray, was the Coeur à la Crème. A morning coffee was probably the best way to entertain this fairly large gathering.
When you put itsy-bitsy marshmallows in this elegant French dessert, should you call it pot de cream? Whatever you call it, it’s delicious. We serve it with an alcohol-laced whipped cream and a small cookie. Do not be too proud to serve this. We’ve had many a food snob tell us it’s delicious.
¾ cup leftover strong coffee
½ pound mini marshmallows
1 cup heavy cream, whipped
Pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream, whipped
Confectioners’ sugar to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla
Bourbon or rum to taste
Heat coffee in a double boiler. Add marshmallows and stir until dissolved.
Using a hand mixer, beat the mixture until foamy and then stir in salt.
Fold in the whipped cream. Be sure the marshmallows are so completely absorbed that you don’t have to reveal you used this plebeian ingredient. Fill the pots de crème to within an inch or so of the top. Put the tops on and refrigerate overnight. Before serving, whip the cream and add confectioners’ sugar to taste. Fold in the vanilla and add enough bourbon or rum to taste. You must really flavor the cream.
Remove tops, nap with flavored whipped cream, and replace the tops. The original recipe calls for a chocolate curl or shavings. I prefer to serve with a tiny cookie or a fried walnut or two.
A word about serving: Southern ladies love demitasse cups, pots de crème, and tiny cream soup cups. But men rarely appreciate them. Either they don’t hold enough, or men can’t get their fingers through the rings. DO NOT use tiny cups for a groom candidate. But for a morning coffee for ladies, you can’t do better.
Makes twelve.
The lemonade, garnished only with mint grown in the yard, was served in cool crystal flutes, placed on a round table in the tent. It was just plain lemonade, but very tasty. However, if you want something jazzier, this is an excellent alternative to the traditional lemonade.
2 cups fresh lemon juice
1½ cups pure maple syrup
8 cups water
½ teaspoon ground red pepper
Mix the lemon juice and maple syrup. Add the water, mixing well. Stir in the red pepper, add ice, and serve. The pepper perks matters up a bit!
Makes fourteen eight-ounce servings.
Do not be intimidated. These are so easy and serve many purposes beyond the custard filling. For this morning coffee, we used egg salad. You can make these in advance and freeze, but they must be reheated before being filled.
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
¾ tsp sugar (or less)
1 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter, cut in pieces
4 large eggs
Combine flour, salt, and sugar. In a medium saucepan boil the water, and as it boils add the pieces of butter, one at a time. After the last piece has melted, add the flour mixture. Stir until smooth and the mixture forms a ball. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to sit for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add 1 egg at a time, beating well after each addition.
After the eggs have been incorporated, stir no more, as you will over-mix and affect the rising. Allow to rest 5 minutes or so.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
You can bake these directly on a sheet. However, using parchment paper to cover the bottom of the baking sheet prevents the bottoms from getting too dark. Times change, so today there are no more trips to Memphis or Jackson—simply head to your local Wally World for parchment paper.
Use a small teaspoon to drop the pastry onto the parchment-covered baking sheet. Keep the puffs small (you know small is always better) and space them about 2 inches apart.
To ensure a nice glaze, mix a large egg with 1 teaspoon water. Brush the top of each puff… gently. Southern cooks prefer using their hands instead of a pastry brush. Simply dip your finger in the egg wash. No one has complained or died—yet! You have more control when not using a pastry brush.
Bake at 350° for approximately 17 minutes. You can tell if they are not ready, if when you remove one from the oven, it collapses. If you make larger puffs, increase the cooking time to 20 minutes. When cool, split in half and fill with the desired filling I prefer waiting to fill until just before serving, as some fillings will make the bottoms soggy.
Makes approximately 3 dozen small.
6 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 green onion, minced (optional)
½ cup homemade mayonnaise, or to taste
1 slice crumbled bacon
Pinch of tarragon
Salt and white pepper to taste
Combine the above ingredients and allow mixture to sit covered in the icebox for several hours before serving… we think the flavors like to get friendly with each other.
Good egg salad really doesn’t require much; perhaps just mayo and salt. However, there are many versions. Some people like to add fig chutney, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced or chopped olives (black or pimiento stuffed), or curry powder.
11 ounces goat cheese (Chèvre)
½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, well drained
1 heaping tablespoon basil pesto
Pinch of fresh rosemary (optional)
Blend all ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to use.
We didn’t serve this, but it is another ideal filling, if the party is later in the day.
6 chicken breasts (this equals about eight cups finely chopped)
1 medium onion, quartered
1 carrot
1 stalk celery with top
1 chicken bouillon cube
Peppercorns
Cover the breasts with water. Add onion, carrot, celery (with top), bouillon cube, and several peppercorns. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce to simmer. Cook until the chicken is completely done.
Remove chicken and with your kitchen shears (I love my Joyce Chen shears) cut the meat into very small pieces. Remember this chicken salad is for small tart shells or cream puffs.
If you choose to use this for a luncheon dish, leave the chicken in nice chunks. Add a white grape or two.
1 cup homemade mayonnaise
4 ounces cream cheese
cup sour cream
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
Blend the above ingredients. Refrigerate.
Makes one and a quarter cups.
½ cup homemade mayonnaise
3 green onions, chopped
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup toasted slivered almonds
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Add the above ingredients to the chopped chicken, followed by the addition of the dressing (which you made the day before). Mix well.
Cover and refrigerate before serving.
Makes five cups of chicken salad.
It doesn’t take much for a Southerner to get into a theme, and a wedding is the perfect place to go crazy (for one reason or other). We served this because it is heart-shaped and delicious. It’s quite possible that none of the younger guests knew what it was. That’s the reason it’s always good to have a blend of ages.
Use a white porcelain heart-shaped mold with holes in the bottom, the traditional Coeur à la crème mold. This one holds about three quarts. Line the mold with a double thickness of cheesecloth, leaving enough to fold over and cover the top.
1 box (8 ounces) Philadelphia cream cheese
1¾ cups cottage cheese
½ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
Pinch salt
½ cup heavy cream, whipped
In the food processor blend cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, and salt.
Process until smooth, fold in the whipped cream. Transfer to the mold and pack to remove any air bubbles. Fold cheesecloth over the top. Set the mold on a plate to catch any drippings and refrigerate overnight. Unmold this onto a large serving tray, removing the cheesecloth gently.
Serves 25 as finger food.
We used a silver tray and served three kinds of strawberries… dipped in white chocolate, dark chocolate, and plain. We dragged out Ann Call’s sugar caster and sifted the powdered sugar for it. We used heart-shaped toast points, black bread, and white bread that had been lightly toasted. The contrasts of white and black and red were lovely.
Melt semisweet chocolate in a small saucepan over medium heat. Do not let the chocolate get too hot. Stir gently until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and dip the tip of each strawberry, about one-third to one-half the way up. Try to leave the leaves and stem on the berry.
English cucumbers are long, skinny, and seedless. The ones we grow in the Delta are fatter and with seeds. Either variety should be peeled, thinly sliced, and soaked overnight in a mixture of ice water and white vinegar. I use half vinegar and half water to which a bit of salt has been added.
Cucumbers
Wheat bread
Unsalted butter, softened
Homemade mayonnaise
Paprika
Using a small heart cookie cutter, cut the cucumber and the bread the same size.
Butter the bread, spread with mayonnaise.
Pat the cucumbers dry and put on top of the mayo. If you are not serving the sandwiches for a while, cover them with a damp tea towel. Just before serving, sprinkle with paprika.
We are cheating a bit by including this recipe—we actually served regular coffee at our party. But this would be an excellent addition to a morning coffee. The recipe comes from one of the great cookbooks of our region, the beloved Gourmet of the Delta. The late Mrs. Lawrence Lipscomb Paxton, once a prominent hostess, contributed this recipe. Osceola was the name of her house. This is lovely served in a silver punch bowl.
1 cup milk
1 small (two-ounce) jar instant coffee
2 quarts chocolate ice cream
2 quarts vanilla ice cream
1 pint home-style vanilla ice cream
1 pint heavy cream, whipped
Chocolate sauce
Nutmeg
Bring the milk to a boil and add the coffee. Stir until dissolved. Cool completely.
Blend milk/coffee mixture and the 4 quarts of ice creams. Pour into punch bowl and chill in the freezer. Just before serving, float the softened home-style vanilla ice cream in the punch with the whipped cream on top. Drizzle with chocolate sauce and sprinkle lightly with a few gratings of fresh nutmeg.
Makes about thirty servings.
Petit fours with ivory fondant icing completed the menu. Petit fours can be larger, but these were tiny, maybe an inch square. They were monogrammed with the first letter of the bride’s surname in soft pink and her surname-to-be (if she takes his name) in a mossy green that is known in Greenville as Kyle green, after the favorite color of the late Kyle Pickens, a popular Delta interior designer. Did we make these? Sometimes the better part of being a good hostess is knowing that some things are better bought than homemade. Petit fours come in this category.
Evelyn Hall was Anne Gayden Call’s best friend (and Charlotte’s aunt). Mother didn’t make these, because Evelyn always brought them to her. I can remember looking for the tin from Bourbon, Mississippi—where Evelyn lived. If the Halls had a really good pecan crop, Evelyn would stuff each date with a pecan. Swits is the old-fashioned name for these tiny pickups.
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
½ pound extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
1½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 eight-ounce bag dates
½ cup confectioners’ sugar (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400°.
Blend butter and cheese. Add flour, salt, red pepper. Mix until incorporated, but not too much or your dough will be tough. Pinch off small amounts and cover each date, sealing the edges well. Bake at 400° until lighly browned, about 12 minutes or so. If desired, when cool, sprinkle lightly with confectioners’ sugar.
But which church? Southerners refer to the punch made with green sherbet, so beloved of our childhood, as Presbyterian Punch. (A recipe for Presbyterian Punch is on here.) This isn’t the traditional Presbyterian Punch—it has Kool-Aid, which makes us think more of Jim Jones than John Calvin. We know maraschino cherries and Kool-Aid are tacky. But, if you give it a chance, it’s quite tasty—and maybe you can spike it when nobody’s looking. Then it really tastes good.
1 quart very warm water
3 cups sugar
4 packages (23 ounces each) Kool-Aid
2 cans (46 ounces each) pineapple juice (don’t forget to save the cans)
1 can (14 ounces) frozen lemon juice, defrosted
4 cups cranberry or cranberry-apple juice
6 quarts ginger ale, chilled
Maraschino cherries, well drained (optional), but cranberries would be a bit more dignified.
Dissolve the sugar in warm water.
Add the Kool-Aid and stir. Then add the pineapple juice, lemon juice, and cranberry juice. After well mixed, pour back into the pineapple juice cans (you will need extra containers). Put in the freezer. As the mixture freezes, you can add well-drained maraschino cherries (or cranberries).
At least 2 hours before serving, remove from the freezer and let thaw. You can immerse these cans in hot water to speed the process, but be sure to thaw just enough to loosen the mold from the can. Place two of the frozen molds in the punch bowl and pour chilled ginger ale over them. Gently break up the molds to create a very slushy punch.
Makes about three gallons.
Any punch can be enhanced by the addition of an ice or punch mold. Simply freeze plain water or some of the punch (with perhaps a few tiny flowers or bits of fruit) in a round mold. Before the reception begins, unmold and float in the punch bowl.
An ice or punch mold will ensure that the punch does not get lukewarm, a real no-no.
Don’ts
All Tropicals—Do you really want a phallic symbol bouquet at your wedding?
Glads—so tacky they’d make us sads
Blood Red Roses—There are so many beautiful colors we don’t know why anybody buys El Tacko roses.
Forever Flowers… you know, the nonbiodegradable kind that will still be “alive” for your funeral
Corsages—We wish we could dissuade the DAR ladies from wearing orchids from hell (also known as cymbidiums) on their large Daughter bosoms. If Grandmother demands a corsage, it should be small and worn attached to a purse or hankie.
Leather leaf, a fernlike filler that looks like plastic and just might be
A single anything—looks like you’re being cheap! The single rose lost its meaning around the time of Robbie Burns.
Baby’s breath (can become a “do” if used very sparingly or as circlet of flowers for younger members of the wedding party)
Daisies—unless you’re getting married in a field (If you use daisies, use only a few and be sure they are not dyed.)
Plastic bouquet holders… those things the florist calls a shortcut. They just cram the flowers in and hope for the best.
Anything with glitter!
Do’s: Bring Back the Tussie-Mussie
A scent wedding—Certain fresh flowers can be chosen to give a lovely scent—just be sure they are not overwhelming.
Herbs—such as a sprig of rosemary for remembrance
Lilies (especially lily of the valley), roses (gentle colors), sweet peas, hydrangeas (the beautiful green ones)
A garland of boxwoods, which we call box. The young attendants carry the garlands and attach them to family pews and choir stalls.
Wrapped stems, hand-tied, with a beautiful ribbon or a lovely handkerchief, one from your grandmother, if possible. A lovely baby pin or some other trinket of meaning incorporated into the bouquet, as long as it’s not schmaltzy.
Arm bouquets
Beautiful ribbon
Garden flowers and greenery
Love knots down the ribbons of the bouquet
And, of course, a tussie-mussie—A tussie-mussie is a small, cornucopia-shaped flower holder. Victorian brides carried them, and we’re encouraging a tussie-mussie revival.