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infare noun The dinner or reception following a wedding, usually at the home of the groom’s parents, with much merry making, dancing, and other festivities, replaced in more recent times by the wedding reception. [ultimately < Old English infær “an entrance” < in + fær “journey”; OED3 infair/infare n 2 “a feast or entertainment given on entering a new house, especially the reception of a bride in her new home” Scot, north dialect and U.S.]

1824 (in 1912 Doddridge Notes on Settlement 104) On returning for the infare, the order of procession and the race for black Betty was the same as before. The feasting and dancing often lasted several days, at the end of which the whole company was so exhausted with loss of sleep that several days’ rest was requisite to fit them to return to their ordinary labors. 1860 Week in Smokies 126 Mammy, is it true that when you come home with daddy to this cabin, you had nothing to eat at the infair but roasted taters? 1915 Dingus Word-list VA 184 = a reception to bride and groom given by the groom’s parents. 1939 Hall Coll (Emerts Cove TN) When one would start from where they was married to go to their husband’s home, that was called the infare. 1967 Jones Peculiarities Mtneers 63-64 Marriages in the mountains seventy years ago were usually followed by a season of merriment and feasting. Relatives and friends went to great lengths to entertain the bride and groom and their relatives. An almost universal custom was the “infair.” On the day following the wedding, after the bride’s parents served a bountiful wedding dinner, the parents of the groom were hosts to the wedding party, including the officiating minister and his wife, at the “infair.” 1981 Whitener Folk-ways 72 For the uninitiated, the infare was a bit of frolicking at the home of the groom, usually in the afternoon after a morning wedding. At this occasion the groom furnished the whiskey, food, and sweets (usually candy for the ladies) for a proper celebration. The celebration itself usually included folk dancing, singing, games, and occasionally a certain amount of horseplay during which bride and groom were made to suffer certain indignities of a minor nature.