Trousseau Monogram Etiquette

Earlier generations of women worked for years, almost from the time a daughter was born, to prepare the linen against her wedding day; and, obviously, it was impossible to know the groom's last name. – Above, “Mopsy.” Mopsy was a popular comic that started in 1939 and ran for several decades as a syndicated newspaper comic strip.

By the principle that rules the whole wedding tradition, all the bride's linen and silver should be marked, if at all, with her maiden initials. In the matter of the trousseau, there is an even more practical reason for it: Earlier generations of women worked for years, almost from the time a daughter was born, to prepare the linen against her wedding day; and, obviously, it was impossible to know the groom's last name. Cynics have suggested a modern reason, too— the eventuality of divorce— but anyone who marks a trousseau with this in mind should clearly not be getting married. — From Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, 1948

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Monogramming Silver

An ornate silver pattern handle requires that the monogram either be placed on the back of the flatware or in the functional end of the piece. This rare Versailles sterling pattern caviar spade has the owners’ last name’s first initial prominently in the functional end above.– Whether or not she is to receive her flat silver all at once or purchase it a setting at a time, the bride should choose her pattern and monogram as soon as her invitations are out, so friends who wish to give her silver may match their gifts. 

The bride's family usually gives her her flat silver, and the groom's family gives the silver tea service as a wedding gift.

If having a silver tea service will create a storage problem in small quarters where it can’t be on display, the groom's family might better give a china service or, perhaps, broadloom if that is a paramount need of a young couple on a slender budget. It is nicer, of course, for both families to give enduring things such as silver or fine china, but many young couples would prefer checks to use only in part to start purchases of silver or fine china on a budget basis, adding to their stock as their living quarters and their social activities grow.

Whether or not she is to receive her flat silver all at once or purchase it a setting at a time, the bride should choose her pattern and monogram as soon as her invitations are out, so friends who wish to give her silver may match their gifts. She may register her silver pattern and that of her china and glass at shops from which it will probably come. This will be of much help to her friends. Silver serving dishes and platters don't necessarily match the flat silver but should be in a harmonizing style. Loveliest are the old Sheffield platters and serving dishes, plated of course on copper, but there are many modern pieces in sterling or, more usual, plate, in a variety of classic patterns that complement flatware.

If it is out of the question for a bride to have even a starter set of sterling, a fine quality of plate in a simple pattern will do. But, given a choice between a complete set of even the best plate and a four-place setting of sterling, the wise bride will chose the sterling, adding to it on anniversaries and other gift-giving times. Sterling is a permanent investment requiring no upkeep or replacement. It always has a company complexion and will be just as acceptable and beautiful twenty or thirty years after the wedding.

Styles in silver are fairly stable. Heavy embossed or repousse silver, which is hard to clean, is better avoided for the simpler, more modern, patterns. But if you have inherited heavy, heavily-decorated silver, it is heartening to know that you can still add to your set, as the great silver- smiths still produce for these familiar open-stock patterns. And often you can pick up extra forks, spoons, and knives at auctions or old silver shops. In fact, a friend of mine, with no family to give her silver and a slim budget on which to start, deliberately chose one of the lovely, decorative old pat- terns, buying it secondhand, and from time to time picks up six spoons or a dozen salad forks in antique shops and elsewhere at half the price they would be new from the silversmiths that have been making them for a century. And, as with all fine sterling, their beauty increases with use and the years.

A dozen of everything in all-sterling flatware is ideal, but a young bride can do very well with four- or six-place settings consisting of dinner knife, dinner fork, salad fork, butter knife, teaspoon, and dessert spoon. The teaspoon will be used for consommé and cream soup, for desserts in small. containers, for grapefruit or fruit cup, as well as for tea or coffee. The dessert spoon will do for soups in soup plates and for desserts served on flat plates. She will need two tablespoons and two extra dinner forks to serve with, a carving set, a cake knife and, of course, after-dinner coffee spoons.

If her budget is limited she should avoid purchasing flat silver that is. teaspoon will be used for consommé and cream soup, for desserts in small containers, for grapefruit or fruit cup, as well as for tea or coffee. The dessert spoon will do for soups in soup plates and for desserts served on flat plates. She will need two tablespoons and two extra dinner forks to serve with, a carving set, a cake knife and, of course, after-dinner coffee spoons.

If her budget is limited she should avoid purchasing flat silver that is used only occasionally fruit knives and forks, oyster forks, ice-tea spoons, fish forks and knives, cheese scoops, and the like. If ancestral silver is to be used, it is probable that some of these things will be missing anyhow and substitutes will have to be found.

A word of warning to the bride who rejects offers of sterling silver when she marries in favor of household furnishings she feels she needs more. If you don't get your sterling now, you may never get it. Once a family starts growing, its constant needs too often absorb funds we thought would be available for something so basic as sterling. So we “make-do” over the years with ill-assorted cutlery, deceptively inexpensive because it wears. out. Then come the important little dinners, as a young husband gets up in the world. We push a chair over a hole in the living room rug, put a cushion under the pillow of the sofa with a sagging spring, and distract the guests' attention from the picture-less walls by charming flower arrangements. But there is nothing that can be done about the shabby flatware, which, somehow, is still with us, even though it was bought just to tide us through the first year in the tiny apartment. But then, of course, the baby came.

Never again in her lifetime will a girl find her family and friends in such a giving and sentimental mood as they are at the time of her wedding. At no other time will it occur, very probably, to any of them to give her so much as a silver ash tray. But at the propitious moment they think of sterling silver as the gift for the bride as part of her dowry as it should be. So, though she starts married life without as much as a roasting pan, she should be able to lay her table if it's only a bridge table with the kind of silver she'll be proud to see on whatever table the future has in store for her.

Right from the start, it is the wife's task to set the tone of the family's living. And one's everyday living should differ very little from that presented to guests. We are all strongly influenced by things around us. What family doesn't deserve the sight of an attractively set dinner table, even when guests aren't present?

Should gifts of silver be monogrammed? The bride should decide how she wishes her silver marked, then, if it is given her in a complete set, it arrives already monogrammed. If friends give her flat silver from a chosen pattern, it is better to send it unmonogrammed, in case she receives many duplicates. Hollow ware and trays should be sent unmonogrammed to make them exchangeable.  – From The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette, 1952

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Amy Vanderbilt on Monogram Etiquette

This server is monogrammed with a single, elegant initial for a last name – “After she was married, or if her husband’s family presented silver, that silver was marked with her married initials or the single initial of the new family or with her husband’s crest. This meant differently marked silver used on the same table. And while this is very usual, especially when we have inherited silver, many brides prefer unity in monogramming. The bride often has her silver marked with her new initials, or the single initial of her new name or with her husband’s crest, if they both wish.”

How should silver be marked? In hope chest days a girl began collecting her silver piece by piece, long before a knight even appeared over the horizon. It was monogrammed with her maiden initials or the single letter of her last name or with her family’s crest, and it remained her personal property. After she was married, or if her husband’s family presented silver, that silver was marked with her married initials or the single initial of the new family or with her husband's crest. This meant differently marked silver used on the same table. And while this is very usual, especially when horizon. It was monogrammed with her maiden initials or the single letter of her last name or with her family’s crest, and it remained her personal property. 

After she was married, or if her husband’s family presented silver, that silver was marked with her married initials or the single initial of the new family or with her husband’s crest. This meant differently marked silver used on the same table. And while this is very usual, especially when we have inherited silver, many brides prefer unity in monogramming. The bride often has her silver marked with her new initials, or the single initial of her new name or with her husband’s crest, if they both wish.

Ornate initialing or monogramming has given way to simple markings, usually suggested by the jeweler as being in harmony with the design of the silver. Sometimes triangles or inverted triangles are used, with the bride's initials or her first initial and the groom's combined with his last initial. This may be: 

N (his last name), 

JP (their two first initials) or

J F triangle or with her first two initials at the base). 

G (her maiden initials in an inverted JP (their two first initials)  

or 

J F G (her maiden initials in an inverted triangle or with her first two initials at the base). 

– From The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette, 1952

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

New Etiquette for Brides of 1958

This pickle fork bears the name Ursula Edson, giving this Victorian fork character

Monograms can dress up plain flatware patterns with simple, yet elegant lettering in numerous styles. Or, one can have a birth or other special occasion memorialized along with monogrammed initials or complete names.Antique monogrammed silver has a charm that many newer items do not.

Monograms — Years ago, etiquette demanded that the bride-to-be should have all her linen - and silver marked with her maiden initials only. Nowadays, it is more usual, and less confusing, to use her future initials —those of her first name, maiden name and husband’s surname.

Widow’s Marriage — When a widow marries she does not wear a bridal veil or orange blossom wreath. She does not have bridesmaids, but she may have a maid or matron of honor. The customary procedure dictates that a widow write personal notes of invitation to her wedding. — San Bernardino Sun Telegram, 1958

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Tea and Dining in Early America

This Steiff sterling, Williamsburg Virginia, reproduction of a “sucket” fork and spoon which features a “rat tail” on top of the back of the spoon’s bowl. Early American Silver had a style all its own. A “rat tail” was a design component which reinforced the bowl of the spoon to the handle.– “Teaspoons were not of a standard size. Often, they were small and of a proportion which allowed them to be laid across the tops of the small handleless cup, as an indication that no more tea was desired. That used to be the etiquette.”

The “Nancy Page” club was almost ready to close its season. They still had some of the fittings of the early American home to study. Today they were interested in silver. First they noted the exquisite texture of the old silver. This came from the fact that it was worked entirely by hand. The hand process kept in a certain life of the silver which heavy rollers of modern usage take out. The spoons made before 1730 or thereabouts had the characteristic “rat tail” a short distance down the back of the bowl, but this extended down further in later years, say 1750. 

The crest or initials were usually engraved on the back of the handle. The bowl of the spoon became less elliptical in the later years. Teaspoons were not of a standard size. Often, they were small and of a proportion which allowed them to be laid across the tops of the small handleless cup, as an indication that no more tea was desired. That used to be the etiquette.

Cream pitchers changed their shapes according to the contours of the other furnishings of the home. Just as the present angular age with its flat surfaces and planes has brought in new silver as well as furniture, so that age with its swelling bulbous contour in decoration, affected the silver. Sometimes the cream pitchers were danity, three-legged affairs like the one shown. This dates back to about 1790. Earlier in point of time when contours were more substantial, we get a tea pot similar to the one shown. These dated back about 1700. It has the domed top of the period and used an ebony handle to make it easier for a hostess to handle the pot filled with hot tea. – Florence LaGanke as “Nancy Page” for the San Pedro Pilot, 1929

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Monograms

A dainty, antique sterling strawberry fork, with the letter “B” monogram.

Many antique utensils have been monogrammed. The monograms were put on the flatware not just as decoration, but also as a way of identifying the flatware’s owner and to stop pilferage by unscrupulous guests.  Throughout the 18th century, silver eating utensils and serving pieces were popular in Europe and America for only those who could afford them. Silverware was identified with women of the moneyed classes. 

At that time, women could not legally own land or other property, so their lives were limited to, and revolved around, the home and family. For this reason, silverware was significant as a woman's contribution to the financial part of a marriage, and it was often purchased for her one piece at a time and kept in what was called a "hope kchest," along with other household goods such as linens and quilts. 

Because silver flatware was bought with a woman's taste in mind, until the latter part of the 19th century, most patterns were designed for women. The silver flatware, along with other household goods, was traditionally monogrammed with the bride's initials, by the mid-20th century. Often times, one will see utensils with monograms on the back. The flatware is turned upside-down at place settings. This is considered a “French fashion,” however, it was seen by the 17th and 18th centuries on many fine British tables, as well. 

And other monograms?

Traditionally, monogramming is done in the following manners:

• Nicknames are rarely used in monogramming personal items, unless they are done for a child’s “thank you” note cards or personal items.
• For items belonging to the unmarried woman, a monogram using all three names is done in this order – First, last, middle initials, with the center initial larger than the two flanking initials.
• For items belonging to the married woman, a monogram using all three names is done in the same order – First, last name, middle initials, with the center initial larger than the two flanking initials.
• Traditionally, an engaged couple doesn’t use the same last name before their wedding ceremony. Instead, they may wish to use a duo-gram, which incorporates the couple’s first-name initials. Once they are married, they may use their full combined initials.
• If you do want to use a duo-gram, the old custom is followed with “ladies first,” by monogramming the wife’s first initial, the couple’s married last name in the center, and the husband’s first initial last.
• For items belonging to the single or married man, a monogram using all three names is done in this order – First, middle, last name initial, with all of the initials being the same size.
• Monograms for those unmarried, are most times the single first-name initial. This allows for the addition of a surname’s initial at a later date.
• It is incorrect to have one’s monogram engraved on the envelope of social stationery. The monogram should appear only on the note paper.

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia