A Wedding's Real 'Best Man': The Bride's Dad
THE WEDDING SEASON
A Wedding's Real 'Best Man': The Bride's Dad
ONE OF THE MANY THINGS THAT ACTIVATE my tear-ducts about weddings is the Dad factor.
It kills me. It doesn't matter if it's my friend Christa and her ol' man Tim or just some random peeps on TV. I've been to assorted weddings of people I don't know too well, and still the Dad factor gets me err'time.
I struggle with this feeling because a part of me finds it inherently anti-feminist. But I am also somewhat of a sucker for tradition, and every fatherly gesture propels me into a blubbery mess of emotion.
Until it happened to me, I didn't value the "asking of approval" step. It's pretty bizarre when the bride is an adult and two men discuss her fate, mono y mono. Creepy!
Zach's approach, leaning toward my dad at a concert: "So, I, uh bought your daughter a big-ass engagement ring." (Can you guess his astrological sign? Yeah, Taurus.) My dad: "Is that so? When are you gonna give it to her?"
Zach, growing nervous: "Well, uh, um, well, this, uh, weekend, um, pending your, uh, approval. Sir."
Dad: "We like you. Our family likes you. Wait 'til she's graduated to get married." Score.
Another troubling tradition is "giving away" the bride. Though, I gotta say, it's soul-crushingly touching.
If feeling particularly sentimental, I’d eat that shit for breakfast and wash it down with a Meg Ryan movie. Just yesterday, at Christa's rehearsal dinner, the other bridesmaids and I were losin' it when ol’ Tim walked her down the aisle. At the rehearsal.
When I get married, both of my parents will walk me down. But to each her own, and beautiful Christa and her (ahem, super super handsome) father looked perfect in the aisle. Don’t even get me started on the dance.
A girl's father is the first man she'll ever love. I still think that my dad is the most handsome man on the face of the planet. Though some wedding traditions don't jibe with current ideas of a 'feminist,' any homage to dad during a wedding is homage to a bride's first love.
Sophia Ulmer, a creative writing major at Columbia College in Chicago, will write on weddings every Saturday through June. When she's not writing for CrabbyGolightly, she's stirring things up at her cooking blog, feckinfranchtoast.blogspot.com
