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Posts: 14247
Oct 12 15 8:45 PM
Administrator
OK, guys, my daughter just got married, so here comes a long, personal, rather disjointed post from a guy who’s still pretty emotionally raw. If you just want to see photos keep scrolling.
Basically, I’m a guy who never really wanted kids but went, in one fell swoop, from being a bachelor to being a married man with a 16-year-old daughter. When my wife and I were dating I remember thinking that by the time we got married the daughter she was raising as a single mother would soon be out on her own, so I really wouldn’t have to be very involved – I wouldn’t really have a child anyway, right? – and, besides, she didn’t really want a father either. She’d lost her biological father at the age of 10. Well, that was almost 20 years ago now and, man ‘o man, has my attitude changed! A very strong relationship built up between us and, as I may have mentioned before in this tome of a thread of mine, since the day I turned into a blubbering puddle when she introduced me to a bunch of her friends in college as her ‘dad’, not ‘Tom’ or ‘my step-father’ but Dad, I’ve come to realize that there’s little, if anything, I want more in this world than to see her safe and happy.
What started with a phone call in April, 2014, on my birthday, with her telling me that she had just gotten engaged, came to pass last Saturday, as she and her girlfriend of 2+ years got married. It’s been a very emotional 18 months wondering if they’d actually stick together (I was skeptical), watching them grow as a couple and, especially, wondering what the US Supreme Court would do on the issue of gay marriage. On June 26th when the Court’s decision was announced I was both stunned and elated because, as I wrote on my thread that day:
Imagine, as a father, believing that, for as long as you've known her, your daughter would never get to enjoy the same privileges, or even the same basic rights as you, only to wake up one morning, read the news, and find that much of that had changed in a flash.
Until that day there had always been a slight fog of doubt that the wedding could even happen, so only the basic plans had been laid, which meant that the last three months have been a whirlwind. In addition to the usual stuff, my wife decided to make the wedding dress, the enormous skirt that went beneath it, the cummerbund, the bowtie for my now daughter-in-law (several Beard Board members were the benefactors of all the practice ties she made in cotton batik), the ring pouch, and her own dress! The last, as you can see below, didn’t happen but everything thing else did. The last week was just plain crazy at my house, hence your not seeing me here much over that time. For me, I had been knitting my vest but discovered on Tuesday night that I’d dropped a stitch in one part that required me to completely redo a huge chunk of it. I wound up taking the rest of the week off of work to get that done – the buttons were sewn on the day before the wedding – and help my wife in whatever way I could. Anyway, it’s all over now and the worst thing that happened was that, while walking arm-in-arm with my wife down the path to the ceremony, with all the guests watching, a bird managed to poop on the freshly-polished toe of my left shoe!
OK, enough blabbering, on to the pictures.
The wedding was held just outside Portland at a summer camp and retreat facility complete with a large main lodge and several cottages so that guests wouldn’t have to drive home after a night of partying. The official photos aren’t out yet, so these are all shots I pilfered from Facebook or that we managed to catch.
Here’s a shot of the area where the ceremony took place:
The main lodge during dinner, which was a lovely spread of Vietnamese food – chicken wings redolent of fish sauce, noodle bowls with all the trimmings, pork skewered on sugar cane, and salad rolls:
Both women lost their fathers as young girls, so they set up a beautiful tribute table for them. Note that my daughter’s biological father (large photo on the left) sported a pretty sweet beard!
The proud parents of one of the brides :
The couple saying their vows. Needless to say, I fully approved of the bearded officiant
A random shot of me waiting for a champagne refill with my lovely daughter headed off with some spoils:
And, finally, what is certain to be my favorite photo from the evening, grainy though it is, and may well be my favorite family shot ever. A friend of my daughter’s perfectly captured a moment when my daughter had stopped by the table, knelt down, took my arm, and said one of the most touching things anyone has ever said to me. Man, did the floodgates burst after this shot was taken!
Thank you for indulging one very proud, bearded father of not just one, but now two, lovely daughters.
Cheers!
Tom
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