How It Happened - Asking The Dad

. . .or not

. . .well, sort of

White Anglo Saxon tradition is for the future groom to ask the future bride her father for a blessing or permission to get married. I pretty much thought it was a given but over the years, I've heard both sides of asking and not asking. I really was on the fence about this until I had a conversation with Adam who got married last year.

Adam said to go ask Carly's dad. I then mentioned what if I didn't' get a chance to ask before of the short time between getting the ring and going to the Bahamas. He said that's fine, just call her Dad as soon as the proposal is done and explain that I didn't get a chance to ask him because of time constraints but I wanted to get his blessing in marrying Carly.

I then played devil's advocate and said what about not asking since its an old tradition. He said if a guy married Madison (his 8 month daughter) and didn't ask for his permission he would "beat the kids ass." I got a good chuckle out of that.

I decided that I would ask. On the way back from Erie, I was going to drop by Lock Haven and have dinner with Carly's younger sister Ashley. I then thought to myself that it might be a good chance to help Ashley start moving her stuff out since I had room in my car. It was also the perfect excuse to drop by Carly's parents place to have "the talk."

Things went according to plan. I made it to Lock Haven and took Ashley out to dinner and got some of her stuff to take back to her house. I called Carly and told her I had stuff to drop off at her parent's place and she called them to let them know I was coming. Turns out that on a random Monday night when people are usually at home, Carly's parents were away for prior plans. There was an outside chance that her dad would be there when I arrived at 9:30pm but as fate had it, he wasn't there when I got there. I dropped off Ashley's stuff and came to the realization that I would have to go with Adam's suggestion of asking when I'm down in the Bahamas.