I am a father of the bride. And, no, I have never been able to watch the Father of the Bride movie without tearing up.
The scene that always gets to me is when Steve Martin (the dad) is playing basketball in the driveway with his daughter, played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley, now the wife of one my favorite country singers. As they reminisce, the scene keeps flashing back to when the bride was a little girl playing with her daddy and all of a sudden I’m looking around to make sure no one sees me crying like a baby. When that movie came out in 1991, my little girl, Abby, was all of one year old and it all seemed so far away. But even then, I think she was secretly scheming to leave me.
So, of course, I have no idea how I’m going to get through the wedding. It doesn’t help that they will be living in Australia, roughly three airplanes and some 24 hours worth of flight and airport terminal time away. In my mind, she was going to get married and they would live in the house next door; or, even better, he could live next door and Abby could stay in her own room in my house.
The truth is, I really am very excited for her. I even like the creep she’s marrying. His name is Alex and I tried not to like him, but he won me over.
His love and care for my daughter calms my heart and there is no question that she is crazy in love with him. He is God’s ideal choice for my daughter and they compliment each other so well.
I wrote a song a few years ago envisioning the day some guy would ask me if he could marry my daughter. I knew the day was inevitable and I knew then, as I know now, that I would be an emotional mess. It’s called What do I know? Part of the lyrics are:
So now he asks me, “Will you give her away?”
My head is swimming, I stammer to say “Will you love her forever?” My world is spinning so What do I know?
You can go to iTunes and download the song for 99 cents and help me pay for this wedding!
It has now been over 30 years since I asked the extremely cute, sweet and smart Vermont girl to marry me. How I pulled that one off remains a beautiful mystery. Of course, I was oblivious to any pain or struggle her father may have been going through about giving away his daughter to some creep from Miami. But he did and I am forever grateful. Now it’s my turn.
Abby’s big day is almost here and I can’t help but think of the very first wedding all the way back in the Garden of Eden. The passage in Genesis 2:23-24 explains that when God brought Eve to Adam like a typical man, he looked at her and after he picked his jaw up from the ground he mustered a profound, “At last!”
Adam then pulls himself together and says, “This is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken from man.” The passage concludes by saying, “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one.”
Dec. 28 is almost here. I think I can hear Alex saying, “At last!”
Ed Thompson is president of LOGOI Ministries and a frequent contributor to this newspaper. Follow his blog at edthompsonlive.wordpress.com.
