Victorian Wedding Breakfast

The wedding, or formal official breakfast, is a stereotyped affair, cast in the moulds of the confectioner and restaurateur. It is little else than the fashionable ball supper, lighted up by day instead of gas light, and is composed of stewed oysters, galantines, mayonnaise of fowl, cold game, ices, pyramids, and all the knickknackeries of confectionery.

The guests take their places with all the ceremony of a formal banquet. The bride and bridegroom always have the precedence in the procession to the refreshment-room, and others take their position according to rank and age. It is customary for the married pair to leave, on the day of marriage, for a tour, and remain absent for a week, ten days, or even more. 

[From: Bazar Book of Decorum. The care of the Person, Manners, Etiquette, and Ceremonials. 1873]