Old friends

Recently, I went over to my parents' house and had a look at old pictures found at my grandmother's house (she is moving into a nursing home). 
Those provide a very interesting look into our family's history and I and my father (who is a keen amateur photographer) also enjoy their aesthetic qualities (at least, in the case of all those black-and-white pictures. old colour pictures tend to degrade badly over time).  
My grandparents were a very kind and warm couple who kept in touch with all their old friends. As a result, there were also a lot of photographs of people who are not part of our family. 
Today, I thought I would share two of those.
I actually know who the people in these pictures are (my grandmother wrote names on the backs of many of the pictures). 

This is the wedding picture of the parents of a childhood friend of my grandmother's. In 1918. Being Dutch, the husband would, despite his uniform not have spent the past years in the trenches (the Netherlands were neutral in WWI). And isn't it interesting to see a short wedding dress, before 1920?

And this picture shows the same couple, with another couple they were friends with, on a visit to the caves of Han, in the Ardennes in Belgium (these limestone caves are still a major tourist destination in the region. I have been there too). I guess that, like the wedding picture, this photograph was taken by a professional. It is just too focussed and well-lit for an amateur picture of the time (for one taken by people of limited means, that is). 
And if you look closely at the lady's skirt (the lady on the right), you will notice that she is wearing the same dress as in the wedding picture... 
Of course, this trip might have been their honeymoon but I just don't know. I do know it was very common to pick (or make or have made) a dress for your own wedding which could still be worn after it (with or without alterations).

All in all, I just think these pictures are really beautiful. I have two Gracieuses from that year, maybe I could find a similar dress pattern as a tribute...