Samantha Saves the Wedding

Samantha Saves the Wedding
The cover of Samantha Saves the Wedding.
Samantha's Series
Published	2000. Originally Published in American Girl Magazine, Jan/Feb 1993, under the title A Most Exceptional Bridesmaid.
Author	Valerie Tripp
Illustrator	Dan Andreasen Susan McAliley (vignettes)
ISBN	1584850353
Setting	March 1905; New York City, New York
In relation to Samantha's Series	Between the events of Samantha's Surprise and Happy Birthday, Samantha!

Samantha Saves the Wedding is part of the Short Stories collection, focusing on Samantha Parkington.

Characters

• Samantha Parkington
• Gardner Edwards
• Cornelia Edwards
• Mary Edwards
• Elsa

Introduced

• Agnes and Agatha Pitt
• Mrs. Pitt

Only in Samantha Saves the Wedding

• Alice Pitt

Story Summary

Looking Back: Weddings in 1904

Discusses weddings in turn of the century America. Topics covered:

• Different events where young ladies and gentlemen would meet for the first time
• Typical courtship activities of the time, such as playing games, bike riding, or visiting amusement parks
• How a gentleman would propose to a lady for marriage
• The placement of the engagement ring on the fiancée's left hand due to the belief a vein in the ring finger, the vena amoris, ran directly to the heart
• Gifts exchanged between the betrothed couple and communications in the mail
• The details that went into the wedding planning, from the date, month, and down to the hour
• The popularity of June weddings
• Society weddings of the time, such as the wedding of Consuelo Vanderbilt and Charles Spencer-Churchill
• Typical fabrics and detailing of the wedding dress
• Alice Roosevelt's influence on society weddings and ladies' magazine when she married Nicholas Longworth
• The use of different flowers to convey their significance, or floriography, in wedding bouquets
• The bridesmaid's involvement in the bridal party
• Hidden charms baked inside the bridesmaids' cake that would foretell future events for the bridesmaids
• Common church and home wedding decorations of the time
• The tossing of shoes at the carriage following the ceremony by the wedding party to ensure good luck for the newlyweds

Activity: Make a Tussie-Mussie

Instructions on how to make a tussie-mussie, a bridesmaid bouquet.

Trivia

Comparison of the original and recolored illustrations.

• The illustrations of the bridesmaid dresses were pink in the short story's original publication (both the magazine and the stand-alone volume). Following the release of Samantha: An American Girl Holiday, the bridesmaids dresses were recolored lavender to resemble Samantha's Bridesmaid Dress and the flowers to pink from lavender when the story was republished in Samantha's Short Story Collection; the image was also edited for the previously published Samantha's Wedding Memories, but this book was a scrapbook and not a reprint of the story.
• The full text is integrated into Samantha's abridged volume, Samantha: The Gift (replacing Samantha's Surprise); this moves the wedding chronologically to November in that volume only.