infare

plural infares · alternative infair

1. ScotlandUSA party or other celebration held to mark someone's entrance into a new home, especially the arrival of a bride at her new home; a wedding reception.

   Today, most weddings are followed by some sort of celebration, although not by infares, shivarees, or any similar institution.

   1995, W. K. McNeil, Ozark Country

   5 more examples

   At our next meeting we set the day for our wedding; and I went to my father's, and made arrangements for an infair, and returned to ask her parents for her.

   1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of, Nebraska, published 1987, page 64

   He stretched his arms above his head and drew a long sigh of pleasurable reminiscence. “We hed a right sorter sociable evenin'. I'll be bound they air all over yander at the infair now.”

   1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 11

   The older women spread the viands for the "infare," as the wedding dinner was called, upon the table, and we stood about it to eat amid shouts and laughter and an exchange of wit as good natured as it was horrifying to bridal ears.

   1910, Corra Harria, A Circuit Rider's Wife, Digitized edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2007

   Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride's going home--to her new house, … Wherever held, it was an occasion of keen and jealous rivalry--those in charge being doubly bent on making the faring in more splendid than the wedding feast.

   1913, Martha McCulloch Williams, Dishes & Beverages of the Old South, Digitized edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2009

   Again Laney interrupted her husband. "My mother said they even had infare dinners the next day after the wedding. The infare dinners were just for the families of the bride and groom, and the bride had a special dress for that occasion that she called her infare dress. The friends of both parties were there at the big feast on the wedding day, but not at the infare dinner."

   1941, Slave Narratives, Volume IV, Digitized edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2006