So goeth my resolve to run nothing else about Jane Austen OR weddings for a calendar year – Ed.
This post was brought to you by @raquinsey.
LETTER THE FIRST
To my bosom companion,
The date approaches when I enter into the matrimonial state. Soon I am to be united in perpetuity with a widower who possesses both a middling income and modest grounds. Time, it would seem, is our greatest benefactor; a mere few years ago, when I thought the title “Mistress of Pemberley” within my grasp, I might have scoffed at such an outcome. And yet, compared to the social penury of spinsterhood that then appeared to be my lot, my felicity today knows no bounds. And my purse strings are consequently quite loosened! Indeed, I am giving both my brother Charles’ and my intended husband’s incomes a most vigorous turn about the county’s shops as I prepare for the long-awaited day.
To that end, I do propose (propose! ha!) dictates for my honored guests. I assure you that if you adhere to the below you will pass the most diverting week-end you have spent in many a year. I speak now not only as the bride-to-be, but as the premier figure in the entire ‘shire for everything proper, accomplished and genteel.
THEREFORE:
1. The gown you choose must be of the first-grade muslin, not an imitation. Therefore betake yourself to a milliner as soon as possible. Let its pale folds be so soft that I can cradle it between thumb and forefinger with nary a scratch to my skin.
2. Every female guest is to wear two petticoats, not including her chemise. You may find yourself overly warm, or a little faint, but you will also be decorously attired, which you must agree is well-worth the discomfort I’m sure.
3. On the subject of petticoats, perhaps a reminder of may be of use: no more than one and a half inch of ankle ought to be shown by any lady in attendance at the church.
4. I will be requesting from each of you a verification of your parentage and your family estate’s before I allow you to sit in the first three rows. No one whose father kept a shop, or who resides in Cheapside, can be allowed in that section, adjacent as it is to the hallowed glories of both God and my wedding-gown.
5. Please do inform your ladies’ maids to expect a labor-intensive visit. Leisure hours and fraternizing with manservants are simply not to be borne. Furthermore both they and you should avoid showing any abominable sort of conceited independence, country-town indifference to decorum, or personal liberty of any manner that would bring shame upon my union.
6. The ceremony commences at exactly ten minutes after one o’clock, and not a moment sooner. Tardiness shall result in being barred entrance, and your forfeiting of the privilege of being introduced to likely dance and conversation partners by my sister, Mrs. Hurst.
7. Be sure to fasten your stays as tightly as possible. Essentially: if your maid does not place one boot upon your shin and exert all her God-given effort upon the laces until both your and her faces are equally crimson, you will need to admonish her, for she fails at her most essential task.
8. Arrive in a barouche, or at the very least a respectable vehicle. Your man may not drive a plain gig or a dog cart to the front if you wish to be admitted– in cases such as these, please have him arrive at the rear entrance. And for heaven’s sake, let the eccentric new Mrs. Darcy’s habits not bleed beyond her own peculiar self. Allow me to elucidate: No walking, and no mud.
9. I aim for harmony of hue and composition. Thus I will frown upon an outer-garment, reticule or tilted parasol that is not in the white or green range, as those are my chosen colours for the day. And do avoid wrinkles, as they are disagreeable.
10. Eschew all shabbiness in your bonnet. And if you wear a cap, assure me that there are two ruffles on its brim. One single ruffle is very plain, I think. But do not, as a certain Mrs. Bennet does, overcompensate for plainness of breeding with prodigiousness of ribbons weighing down your brow.
11. Now, how am I to be sure you are in compliance? Aha, my cleverness outdoes itself. At least a fortnight before the grand occasion, find a bosom friend with some ladylike artistic skill. Ask her to compose a hasty sketch of your chosen attire, paying careful attention to the hem, the fullness of the skirt, the tightness of the stays, and the lack of wrinkles. Send this rendering to me in the post, with alacrity, so that I may see your full preparedness. Thus I shall sleep easier as the date grows nigh.
I imagine this seems not overly burdensome for such an esteemed guest.
Yours, most devotedly,
Caroline
LETTER THE SECOND
Dearest Friend,
A few addenda to my correspondence of late: rather than an inch and a half of ankle please confine yourself to an inch if you may. Naturally, now Charles reprimands me, saying that I request enough petticoats to clothe an entire militia! Indeed he teases me most mercilessly, calling me a “bride-Bonaparte.” Brothers can be cruel.
N.B, if you have already spent your allowance on a new petticoat, you have proven yourself a most devoted friend, and I shall dote upon on you and be sure you get an excellently-placed pew for the ceremony. That is, unless your father kept a shop. Some rules must never be broken.
Yours,
C.B.
(Note: All credit for accuracy goes to https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/author/janeaustensworld/ while all fault for mistakes and anachronisms must go to the author.)
“bride-Bonaparte”
Perfect!
….I suspect Ali from Hey Ladies is Caroline Bingley reincarnated. This is spectacular!
This. This makes up for the entire week and MORE. GLORIOUS.
So goeth my resolve to run nothing else about Jane Austen OR weddings for a calendar year
Thank goodness. I shall never, never tire of pieces that mock lists of bridal demands couched in polite-but-deadly decorum.
But do not, as a certain Mrs. Bennet does, overcompensate for plainness of breeding with prodigiousness of ribbons weighing down your brow
GOD, Caroline, Mrs. Bennet is just trying to modestly shield her FINE EYES as befits the sancity of wifehood
I guess Mrs. Darcy had to get her eyes from one of her parents, truth.
But when Mr. Bennet goes to his grave, I see her cutting a wide swath through the widowed former-shopkeepers.
Oh I see that I mixed up the two. All the same, I just needed to get FINE EYES into this conversation somehow.
In regards to marital gifts. I did not ask for this strange LaLannejuicer contraption. I asked for a servant to be dedicated to such tasks. Instead you send me this loud french peasant contraption . Please return this device for something from my registry.
I know it was probably made up, but who is “N.B.”?? My Jane Austen-mania is drawing a blank. Googling character names yields the Bertrams as sharing a “B’ surname and..
Oh god, could you imagine Maria Bertram meeting Caroline Bingley? Such insufferable self-importance, indeed.
P.S. the actress for Caroline Bingley in the BBC P&P does such an excellent side-eye. 10/10, would watch again.
N.B. is an abbreviation meaning “pay attention” (nota bene in Latin).
It stands for “nota bene”
nota bene – (imperative) Take special note; used to add an aside or warning to a text. Usage notes[edit] As with the Latin phrases id est and exempli gratia, nota bene is now more commonly encountered in its abbreviated form n.b.
Okay, I definitely have missed some of the points of letter writing…nothing to see here, folks.
A+ gif use, though!
N.B. = Nota Bene! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_bene
I have no idea how everyone on earth seemed to learn / begin using this long after I thought I had learned all of the common Latinisms in English, but apparently it Happened and it is a Thing and now you Know.
I learned NB from Miss Bianca, which is also where I first heard of Grey’s Elegy. Miss Bianca is a *most* ladylike mouse.
I learned N.B. from the liner notes to a Pulp album! It requested that one not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recording.
I hate to be That Person, but Regency-era women’s clothing was not nearly so constrictive as Victorian-era clothing. Stays (not corsets) weren’t worn so tightly that it would hurt you terribly (and indeed, men also sometimes wore stays as a sort of general strengthening device), and clothing was often shockingly risque. As a rule women weren’t striving to be All Covered Up–necklines were often perilously low, etc. In general the silhouette strove to be more “natural” than excessively shaped.
I mean, Austen-era women wouldn’t have been quite so egregiously sexy as 20 years before (when women would damp their dresses with water, the better to show off their figures), but it was still a far cry from the all-buttoned-up Victorian period. In many ways the overdressing of later years was a reaction against the anything-goes-let’s-all-look-at-bodies Regency period (sooort of like how in the 80s power dressing and suits became fashionable after the 70s was all “heyyy mannn let it all hang out!”).
NOW I will stop.
Right, but who started the trend of reactionary over-modesty? The Caroline Bingleys of the world, of course.
Well then, don’t fucking do things you hate.
Hey, now, I found all that really interesting, and think the Toast is the perfect place for pedantry and academic ramblings on obscure subjects.
But don’t say you hate to be that person. Embrace the pedantry. “I hate to do this” is such a bullshit thing to say, unless you’re putting a pet down or deciding to give up on a dream.
Hey, thanks for picking apart all my word choices! I’ll be sure to do the same to someone else and thereby perpetuate a hateful commenting culture her!
Yep: I was a jerk. I am having a terrible day, and apparently I’m spreading it around, like a jerk does.
I’m sorry; I was mean for no reason.
For what it’s worth, your point is really good; it was nice to learn more about Regency fashion. Thanks.
I’m also having a terrible day, but reading the reasonable outcome of this thread just made me feel a little better! Hope your day gets better, hon, or at least ends soon.
Same thought here from this pedantic British literature PhD.
To that end (because I love fashion history and will find any reason to discuss it), if this fictional letter is dated a few years after P&P as it states in the text (which would put it roughly around 1814-1817), clothing would be moving into the Romantic silhouette. While not as restrictive as the upcoming Crinoline period, popular fashion became a little more modest (and 10x more concerned with giant ruffly sleeves) and featured stiff, conical skirts that were less risque than the Regency period (all thanks to the sudden resurgence of French fashion’s popularity in England). Necklines would also be a bit higher, although as you mentioned, waistlines won’t drop until around 1818 (they actually get even higher first–thanks, French influence!).
Anyway, that is really here nor there. I just really love talking about French & English fashion from 1790-1840 and/or Jane Austen and/or the two combined. And I really love reading comments/articles like these on the same subjects!
“waistlines won’t drop until around 1818”
I suppose that’s when waists started to be eroticized, as they seem to be in Victorian fiction (esp. Wilkie Collins). Men are always trying to get their arms around someone’s waist. Austen never has any of her gentleman physically come on to a woman, does she? So we don’t really know what part they would have grabbed first. I have a vague impression it is always boobs in the 18th century but that might be from seeing illustrations of Fanny Hill or something.
Don’t stop! My inner costume pedant agrees – except that the Austen-era women were from the decades of dress-moistening, i.e. Regency era. However, the wet dress brigade was usually a faster set than one found in the country. Oh, and the French – but they’re French, so what can you expect?
But yes, there was prodigious exposure of tops of breasts, dresses were often short enough to show ankles, and arms were only covered up in morning wear, not evening wear.
Further pedantry: the wedding probably would’ve taken place during the week, not the weekend. You wouldn’t go to a milliner for your dress, but for your headgear.
Let your milliner also be a modiste, gentle guests. I advise you only to reduce those circumstances which might afford you discomfort in noting other guests at the wedding breakfast to be more elegantly attired than yourself.
Aren’t milliners for hats though? Should this have referred to a haberdasher instead? Sort your shit out Caro B. (note that I’m blaming her instead of the author out of spite for a fictional character)
I believe that haberdashers produce men’s accessories, leaning heavily towards the hat side of things.
Ok SO, wikipedia says haberdashers sell sewing trims like buttons, ribbons (heyo Kitty Bennett) and zips, however in American English it usually means a men’s outfitter. Milliners are just hats. Drapers are your go-to for clothing fabrics including pale folds of expensive non-scratchy muslin.
Yes I agree the modern definition of milliner is definitely a maker of fine hats. I think in the Regency the term was a little more loose, though. A milliner might carry all kinds of clothing items and also be a dressmaker. Also the author used milliner interchangeably with dress-maker above so was trying to riff off of that!
Caroline Bingley would most certainly have frequented a Modiste, though. They were the couture fashion houses of the era.
I *may* have amassed all this knowledge from reading too many regency novels. I tell myself it’s because I am going to write one someday.
Or just a personal dressmaker. Very often the wealthy families had one who’d work on only their clothing, and still need assistants.
Modiste is a new word for me! I like it! I feel that Caroline might need a new one however based on what that dress in the top picture must be doing to her breasts – ouch.
The Toast is on a roll today. Between this and Dirtbag Zeus, my day is complete and perfect.
1) Delicious.
2) This makes me start thinking about Anna Chancellor’s magisterial portrayal of Caroline Bingley, which makes me start thinking about Anna Chancellor in general, which makes me start thinking about The Hour, which makes me miserable all over again that it got cancelled right after a massive cliffhanger involving my favorite character.
3) I can only imagine what Mrs. Darcy is going to do in response to the perfumed kid glove she’s just been slapped with.
In re: #3 I can only imagine that such folly and nonsense will divert her, and she’ll be glad of the opportunity to laugh at these defects of character!
I’m also imagining at least one really perfectly-executed backhanded compliment. One juuuust too subtle to get called on it.
No, she’ll just show up being way hotter than the bride.
the hourrrrr
rolling around in agony here. her fabulous character with her fabulous trousers.
And her fabulous NAME! Lix Storm ftw, y’all.
What if Mrs. Darcy shows up in a gown made of the brightest orange silk she can find? “But Caroline, I thought you loved orange!” Elizabeth is too good to do that, but WOULD I BE? I’m really not sure.
Even if I am sure your father kept a very good sort of shop before his elevation to the knighthood, still I must insist upon your remaining in the inferior pews!
Also: PERT OPINIONS are not to be borne at my day of jubilee. (The less said of FINE EYES the better)
Pride & Prejudice is my go-to resource for sorting acquaintances, but only a handful of my friends have read the book. If only they understood the severity of the burn I’m delivering when I declare someone a Caroline Bingley.
Maybe next time, when my friends are giving me mystified looks at this reference, I can follow-up with, “You know, the type to be a total bride-Bonaparte.” Yes, this shall resolve all puzzlement.
Yeeees. I dubbed one obligatory-invite to my wedding (significant other of close relative) “Caroline Bingley” because she would. not. stop. with her ridiculous demands and passive-aggressiveness. “Bride-Bonaparte” had me rolling.
This could have been three times as long and I would have devoured every word.
I’m very sorry but as I switched to this tab and started scrolling down, I thought that still from the movie was a picture of two cats dressed up as characters from Pride & Prejudice.
WHAT HAS THE INTERNET DONE TO ME I guess is what I should be wailing into the wind while rending my garments and gnashing my teeth.
I love everything about this, and now desperately need an Austen Say Yes to the Dress parody featuring Caroline Bingley. For someone who has only seen a handful of SYttD episodes, I NEED IT. Caroline may think she’d wear a glamorous Zuhair Murad number, but you know she’d actually pick the most complicated Pnina Tornai gown she could get her hands on.
1. I love this.
2. I also have a very soft spot for miss Bingley. I know, she’s the stuck up villain etc, but there is a moment, when they are at Pemberley, when she says something scathing about Elizabeth and Darcy disagrees and v clearly shows that he doesn’t much care for her opinions and the author says something like “Thus she made him say something that hurt no one but herself”. That thing, that forcing people to say things that hurt you is something that I recognize too well not to sympathize with Caroline.
God, I want a barouche to arrive in so badly. I did my wedding all wrong!
I learned N.B. from the liner notes to a Pulp album! It requested that one not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recording.
BRIDE-BONAPARTE. So much better than Bridezilla. Bride-bonaparte not only encompasses the hubris but also the fanatical levels of strategy and organization. Godzilla could never organize a 150 person bridal shower, nor would s/he want to.
BRIDE-BONAPARTE. So much better than Bridezilla. Bride-bonaparte not only encompasses the hubris but also the fanatical levels of strategy and organization. Godzilla could never organize a 150 person bridal shower, nor would s/he want to.
according to Wikipedia– NB in letters is an abbreviation for nota bene, a Latin expression meaning “note well”