For some women, walking down the aisle with their father (or fathers!) can be a really beautiful way to honor the role that relationship has played.
For me, despite the fact that I’m a total daddy’s girl, it wasn’t a tradition that felt like a fit with my ceremony. I love my dad, but he wasn’t “giving me away.” Separate even from the patriarchal history of a bride being property that was “given away,” I wasn’t comfortable with the message it sent about my relationship with my father: my relationship with my partner and my relationship with my father are separate and equal. My relationship with my father shifted when I became an adult — we became peers, colleagues, co-conspirators. My relationship with my father did not shift when I found my partner. My dad and I remained peers, colleagues, and co-conspirators.
There was no sense of loss with my father when I got married. He’d raised me to be an independent, self-sustaining woman, and I’d been one long before I got married.
Because of this, walking down the aisle with my father felt odd — what was being given away? (Nothing.) What was changing? (Nothing.) For our ceremony, my partner and I decided to honor my father’s role in my life in a different way — he’s a poet, and so we asked him to read one of his poems. It was beautiful, and infinitely more meaningful to me than being walked down the aisle.
We’ve featured all sorts of ways to get down the aisle, including
- Walking with one or both parents
- Walking together with your partner
- Walking by yourself
- Walking with a child
- Walking with a sibling
- …We’ve even written about ideas on how to skip the aisle completely!
While I firmly believe there’s no right way to get down the aisle, I do want to recognize that for some of us, it’s not just about getting down the aisle… it’s about finding a ceremonial way to reflect and recognize our relationships.
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Why couples walk down the aisle TOGETHER + processional song ideas
What better way to keep your cool and soothe your nerves than by walking in to your ceremony with your partner (like Jenny and Dean happily did above!)? Sure, it’s awesome to have that surprise moment, but coming in to… Read more
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Who should walk me down the aisle?
We’ve addressed how to tell your dad someone else is walking you down the aisle before (lots of great comments on that post!), but never really touched on the options for who else could walk with you. Here are just… Read more
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Separate, together, and in between: alternative processional ideas from readers
We’ve got a post that lays out some ways to craft your customized processional including how to lay out the order, how to choose the music, where to seat honored guests, etc. It’s totally worth a read if you’re at… Read more
