SHIP OF MATRIMONY CENTERPIECE

1900

Holter, AM (Jeff-Norman)

1978.62.12

Whereas most Montana brides had to economize during the Great Depression, families who could afford lavish weddings indulged. Marian Holter, "daughter of one of Montana's most highly esteemed families," and Phillip Barbour, both of Helena, married on June 20, 1931, in the elegantly decorated St. Peter's Episcopal Church. This "ship of matrimony" held a place of honor at the reception. The satin-covered centerpiece, saved from the bride's parents' wedding thirty-one years earlier, sports a pennant reading "Whatever the wind, whatever the weather henceforth we sail life's seas together."