Sixteen seamstresses had worked nearly around the clock to make her attendants’ gowns, and another sixteen, their assistants, glovers, milliners, and cobblers had worked just as hard to fashion the gifts for the lady’s maids, each of whom were given complete ensembles of the latest style as a gift from the bride and groom.
Alyssa’s gown had been the easiest to prepare. It had required little more than a pressing and the addition of the lace veil and wreath of orange blossoms. As she glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror, Alyssa thought that a darker color might have been more flattering for her light brown hair and blue eyes, but debutantes were forbidden from wearing more dramatic colors until after their presentation at court.
Alyssa had already made her curtsy to Queen Charlotte and to the Prince of Wales, who was acting in his father’s stead, but in choosing to wear her second court gown, she had limited herself to white. This one, made from a heavier satin fabric for warmth, had been hanging in her armoire unworn, and Alyssa saw no reason to waste it. It was, in her opinion, a perfectly practical choice for a wedding gown.
She had dispensed with the necessity for a bridal trousseau since she had yet to wear over half of this season’s wardrobe. Her only concession had been to allow the seamstresses to fashion three sets of bridal lingerie—a set for each of the three nights she would spend in Griffin’s bed.
Alyssa was nothing, if not practical.
On Monday morning, her husband would leave to join his regiment. There would be no need for an expensive trousseau or the dozens of articles of intimate apparel one usually contained.
She would be alone at Abernathy Manor once Griffin left for the Peninsula, and since her goal was to restore the house and the grounds to their previous splendor, her current wardrobe would suffice.
Once she had decided on her wedding attire and saw to the completion of her attendants’ gowns, Alyssa concentrated her attention on the details of the wedding breakfast—providing the food, drinks, flowers, and gifts for two hundred guests.
Alyssa had given everything one final check before she’d begun dressing for the wedding. Elegantly decorated buffet tables lined the perimeter of the ballroom in the Tressinghams’ town house, and smaller tables, set with crystal and silver, were placed about the room, and all of the rooms adjoining the ballroom had been opened up. The adjoining rooms had been decorated to match the ballroom; the furniture in each had been removed, and the carpets had been rolled up and stored, and additional tables, set with more silver and crystal, placed there to accommodate the crush.
All in all, she was pleased with her efforts.
The Prince of Wales’s pastry chef and confectioner had crafted a four-foot-high wedding cake frosted in white and decorated with sugared roses and topped with orange blossoms. It was joined by another cake frosted in chocolate and decorated with candied fruit, fresh mint sprigs, and chocolate shavings. Separating the two cakes was a massive ice sculpture of a bride and groom framed beneath an arch bearing a viscount’s coronet, its single row of pearls clearly visible.
The ice sculpture of the bride and groom had been Alyssa’s idea. Having them stand beneath an arch bearing a viscount’s coronet had, of course, been her mother’s. Alyssa suspected it was her mother’s way of reminding the ton—and perhaps, Griffin—that the most spectacular wedding of the season, thus far, had been that of a mere viscount.
Gunter’s, the confectioner in Berkeley Square, was providing the wedding breakfast. It consisted of cold meats, chicken, fish, ham, roast beef and lamb, prawns and lobster salad, as well as oysters and tongue, a hot and cold soup, truffles, candied fruits, jellies, raisins, dates, and pastries and biscuits of every form and filling laid out on tables covered with snowy white tablecloths and trimmed with pale green satin ribbons. On the end of each of the tables were silver urns of tea and coffee, and at the other end were flavored ices.
Sugared pomegranates, whole oranges dusted with sugar and cinnamon, and bouquets of orange blossoms decorated each table. Alyssa had arranged each one and chosen the green satin ribbon. The yards of ribbon were an extravagance, but Alyssa used them anyway. She tied the bouquets of cascading roses and lilies her bridesmaids carried with the colored ribbons and draped more ribbon around the buffet tables, fashioning lavish bows at the corners of each table.
And Alyssa, her bridesmaids, mother, and future mother-in-law had tied satin ribbons around each of two hundred tiny engraved silver saltcellars to be presented to each guest as a memento of the wedding.
She would have preferred more personal gifts, but engraved silve
r saltcellars were the current rage among the ton, and Lady Tressingham had her heart set on presenting them as gifts. Alyssa had agreed, partly because her mother had worked so hard in helping her with the wedding preparations and partly because her mother enjoyed the novelty of being the mother of the first bride to present such fashionable wedding mementos.
On the eve of the wedding, as was the custom, Lord and Lady Weymouth had hosted a dinner for the wedding party.
Griffin used the occasion to present each of Alyssa’s bridesmaids and his groomsmen with gifts. He gave the ladies heart-shaped diamond pendants on delicate gold chains to wear with their bridesmaids’ gowns, and he gifted his groomsmen with silver flasks engraved with their coats of arms and provided his father with the coin to present to the clergymen, the clerk, the pew opener, and the choir.
The gifts for the household staff and the wedding guests would be presented at the conclusion of the wedding breakfast. Alyssa had chosen to give each of the female staff members lace shawls, kid gloves, or handkerchiefs, depending upon their service. The housekeepers of each household were to receive silver chatelaines, and the cooks of each household, silver lockets. The exception being Alyssa’s lady’s maid and the lady’s maids of the other women, who all received a complete ensemble in the latest style. Each of the butlers of the eight households would be given gold watches, and the footmen and grooms would receive kid gloves and cash.
Alyssa smothered a yawn, then pulled on her gloves. She hadn’t had more than two or three hours of sleep a night in over a week. Her days had been filled with rounds of “at homes” and bridal fetes and the myriad details of planning the wedding, and her nights had been spent attending the balls, musicales, soirees, and midnight suppers to which she and Griffin had been invited. Lady Weymouth had insisted on an early evening for last night’s supper for the wedding party. She had called an end to it at eleven, for which Alyssa was grateful because she had been up since five.
Her wedding day was no different. Alyssa had, once again, rolled out of bed at five to put the finishing touches on the decorations and to oversee the setting of the tables. She was weary. Tired to the bone. And elated. All at the same time.
She’d done it. She had managed to put together a wedding in which her family and Griffin’s could take pride in less than seven days. And she hadn’t forgotten about the members of the household staffs who had worked so hard to make it possible.
Once the wedding breakfast ended, every member of all the household staffs would have the afternoon and evening and the next two days off with full pay.
The Earls of Tressingham, Weymouth, Brookestone, Garrison, and Hastings, and the Marquess of Shepherdston and their families and houseguests, were going to have to fend for themselves until Monday morning.
And no one seemed to mind, because everyone Alyssa had talked to planned to use their days off to catch up on their sleep.
Only the staff of Abernathy Manor was excluded, and that was because Lord and Lady Abernathy would be honeymooning there.
“It’s time, Alyssa.”
Alyssa turned from the mirror to find Lady Miranda Saint Germaine holding a huge bouquet of roses and daisies tied with white satin ribbons and her own bouquet of cascading roses and lilies.
“Your sisters have already lined up to start the walk down the aisle,” Miranda told her. “It’s time for us to follow.”