In honor of Father’s Day, today’s post is all about Dads and their responsibilities in the wedding planning process. As the Father of the Bride, you might think your only role is writing checks. Well, think again. Here is your cheat sheet to everything you need to know to make your little girl’s wedding a dream come true:
PreWedding:
- Along with your wife, host an engagement party
- Contribute to the wedding budget
- Help the couple decide on sites and/ or make other big planning decisions
- May help choose a hotel for out-of-town guests and reserve a block of reduced-rate rooms, create maps to be included with invitations, or anything else couple asks for help with
- Rent your own formalwear (talk with the couple if you’re to coordinate with wedding party)
- Help pick up out-of-town guests from the airport; may also arrange transportation to and from the wedding (vans, bus and so on)
- Typically travel to ceremony with bride
At Ceremony:
- May escort your wife to her seat directly before a Christian ceremony begins; walk your daughter down the aisle in a Christian ceremony; in a Jewish wedding, walk with your daughter and wife and stand under a huppah
- Walk in a recessional with your wife in a Jewish wedding; in a Christian wedding, escort mother of the bride out after wedding party
At Reception:
- Greet guests in a receiving line
- May be announced with your wife
- May make a welcoming speech
- Sit in honored place at parents’ table
- Toast the newlyweds after best man makes his speech and groom responds
- Do father-daughter dance with bride
- May take care of vendor balances at the end of the reception
Postwedding:
- With wife, may hot a postwedding brunch
Source: The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner by Carly Roney and Editors of The Knot
A father is his daughter’s protector and the most important man in her life up until the day she has a husband. You’ve watched her grow from a little girl who needs you into an independent woman. Take joy in these responsibilities and cherish every moment you have with her.
In the unfortunate situation where there is no father, the bride may chose her favorite male family member to take over these roles — a brother, cousin, uncle, etc.
This post is dedicated, in loving memory, to my father, Fouad Y. Michael (1936-2003) and my brothers, Steven and Charles, who stepped in.
Photo by Amaya Photography
