The Hand Off

One thing I haven’t talked about yet is who will be walking me down the aisle. I don’t really like the term “giving me away”…I don’t feel like I’m a piece of property that can be given away. Despite my lack of affection for that term that didn’t stop me from wanting to have someone walk me down the aisle and “present” me to Kristian. First off, I like the tradition and secondly I will probably be too nervous to make it the whole way by myself.

I know that most women have their father walk them down and to be honest I always get a little teary watching this part of the ceremony. It’s cute watching the fathers get all emotional and is just such a sweet father/daughter moment. With that said I will not be having my father walk me down the aisle.

My parents divorced over 20 years ago and both before and after the divorce I was never really close with my dad. I was always a mama’s girl. My relationship, actually my whole family’s relationship, with my father has always been pretty rocky. He’s caused every member of my family and even his own family (i.e. my uncle) a tremendous amount of stress and without going into detail has basically been emotionally abusive. I have tried in the past to work on my relationship with my father. I’ve tried explaining to him why we all feel the way we do and point out the things that he’s done to cause us to not want a relationship with him. Yet he refuses to acknowledge or apologize for the part he’s played in the demise of our relationship but would rather continue to send long emails wondering why we all “hate” him and how he doesn’t understand what he’s done because in his mind he was a “great” father. I’ve finally stopped trying. I told him that while I wish him no ill will I think it’s best if he weren’t part of my life.

Because of this he will not only NOT be walking me down the aisle but he is also NOT invited to the wedding. In fact he doesn’t even know I’m engaged. He does know I have someone in my life but I never told him about the engagement. It may seem wrong but everyone in the family agrees this is for the best. He is the type of person who if he knew I was getting married would do whatever he could to find out the time/place and show up and cause a scene. Will I tell him I’m married after the fact? Perhaps.

Since I always knew that I didn’t want my father to walk me down the aisle I decided a long time ago (like when I was a teenager) that I would have my oldest brother Michael do the honors. Michael is 7 years older than me and has always been there to serve the fatherly role in my life. We’ve always been close, I even lived with him after college for a year and a half. He’s helped me with all the big moments of my life to date….teaching me how to drive stick shift, helping me apply to college, helping me purchase both of my cars, moving into all my various apartments and most recently gifting Kristian and I with a fabulous honeymoon. He and Kristian have become quite close and I know that Michael views him as a brother so I think it’s quite fitting for him to be the one to hand me off to Kristian on the wedding day.

I know that nowadays a lot of women will have their mother’s walk them down the aisle. And that was something I did consider but both my mother and I are pretty traditional when it comes to this sort of thing and she seemed really excited to watch her oldest child walk her youngest child down the aisle. She is also pretty excited that my other brother Keith will be escorting her down the aisle during the ceremony. I think it will be pretty emotional for us all.