Father of the Bride

The father-daughter relationship is a special one . . . especially when the father is growing old and needs his twenty-two year old daughter to read the newspaper to him.  Daughters of this age also appreciate their fathers, who are very likely paying for a wedding.

I have now entered this stage of life and have discovered that the father's role in the wedding plans is basically one-dimensional.  I write checks.  Of course, I've written and published whole books on the subject of wedding and wedding planning, and thank God my daughter has taken much of it to heart and truly values my expertise.  She is like a sponge and has absorbed many of my low-cost or no-cost ideas. 

There are a few other places, however, where I still see cost-savings, but she seems resistant to these.  Among them:

1.
Inviting only five people to the wedding (Chelsey and her fiance, me and Becky, and the pastor who will be presiding . . . I also don't plan on giving the pastor an honorarium and this will save me the cost of the cake . . . which, I should point out, I plan to bake myself from two batches of Walmart Betty Crocker. I also believe we could cut the invitation list to four if Chelsey would entertain the idea of not inviting the groom).

2.
Wearing our swimwear instead of rental tuxes.  I won't wear a shirt, and this will also give me a first chance to wear my new thong.

3.
Limiting the photography to photos taken by me via my cellphone.

4.
Music will be provided by me accapella, including Ava Maria on the spoons with something of a Latin rhythm.

As you can see, I have a multitude of cost-saving ideas and people continue to pay me for them.  Not my family, mind you.  But other people pay me--people who are living actual lives and who work and everything.  People who clip their toenails at night and who have meaningful conversations instead of yelling from the bathroom toilet, "Can you bring me a roll?!"  People who, if they knew better, would never plunk down $12.95 for one of my titles under the belief that "this guy knows what he's talking about."

Naturally, I can save people money--in fact, BARRELS of it--if they will only listen to me.  My advice is worth the price of all my books and the various articles I have published in national Bridal magazines.  I'm still getting paid for my advice and there are some people (not my family, of course) who know a superior mind when they encounter one. 

Thing is, my daughter has her wits about her and she has her mother's charm.  This is a deadly combination for a young woman and she is not as easily duped as she used to be by old Dad.  Still, I am the father of the bride and I remind her of this daily. 

I also take out the checkbook periodically and show her that the balance is quickly approaching ZERO.

If she has any other plans for the wedding, she will soon have to start selling those cracked walnuts she will have to glean and clean out of the front lawn.  But she's young, and she should have no trouble finding a buyer off the street.

And me? I'll keep writing marital advice for magazines and hope that somebody out there is listening.  After all, I've been messing up my own marriage for over twenty-seven years, and I've learned a great deal from failure.

Most days, I still wonder why my wife married me on the cheap. But I was never that easy.  And she knows I look great in that thong.