My dad didn’t walk me down the aisle
The uncertainty over whether Thomas Markle will walk Meghan down the aisle took Maria Lally back to her wedding day
On Monday evening, I was cooking dinner in my kitchen and listening to the radio when I heard the news that Thomas Markle wouldn’t be walking his daughter Meghan down the aisle of St George’s Chapel, in the grounds of Windsor Castle, on Saturday (although reports now suggest he hopes to attend, should his health allow).
Most people probably thought it just another snippet of royal wedding gossip, like speculation over Meghan’s dress or who’s on (or missing from) the guest list. But my heart lurched a little – and went out to Meghan – as it took me right back to my own wedding 10 years ago, when my father didn’t walk me down the aisle.
After all, weddings seem designed with the perfect family in mind; the proud mother-of-the-bride helping her daughter plan the day; the beaming father leading her towards her husband-to-be. And, later on, his humorous but heartfelt speech (Michael Middleton is said to have joked: “I knew things were getting serious when I found a helicopter in my garden. I thought, ‘Gosh, he must like my daughter’”).
But if you don’t have a Middletonesque family, a traditional wedding can hold a mirror up to all kinds of family cracks. After all, it’s not so much the fact your dad isn’t walking you down the aisle to “give you away” (an old-fashioned tradition if ever there was one) but more what it says about your relationship if he doesn’t.
In my case, I simply didn’t have much of a relationship with my father after my parents divorced when I was 12. My dad moved abroad and, over time, his letters and calls became sparser – until there was no contact at all. There was no big fallout; he remarried and moved on with his life, which no longer seemed to include us.
It upset me, of course, but I also got on with my life and busied myself with work, friends and meeting my now-husband, Dan. When people
Any time I saw a bride walk down the aisle with her father, I got a lump in my throat
asked about my father, I told them – truthfully – he lived abroad, but I didn’t go into too much detail about how we were barely in touch.
When Dan proposed, I emailed Dad – it was an old email address and I didn’t even know if he was still on it – and he called me a few days later to congratulate me. A few minutes into the conversation, he had to head off to a meeting at work and promised to call me back. But he never did.
Eighteen months later, Dan and I married, and while it felt odd that my father wasn’t there, it would have felt even odder if he had been. My older brother was supposed to walk me down the aisle, but he got stuck in motorway traffic on the way to the ceremony, so my uncle did instead. And in the place of a fatherof-the-bride speech, I did one myself, thanking my mother for always being there and my new in-laws for welcoming me into their family.
Yet, despite light-heartedly shrugging it off, it stung that my father didn’t walk me down the aisle. I was 28 when I got married and, for the next six or seven years, I attended countless weddings. Every time I saw the bride walk arm-in-arm down the aisle with her father, I got a lump in my throat that had as much to do with my own sadness over my relationship with my father as it did about feeling happy for the couple. The father-of-the-bride speech a few hours later was equally gut-wrenching.
I have a friend who went through countless rounds of IVF and once told me she felt stabs of intense sadness at friends’ baby showers or when she saw new mothers walking their babies in prams. And, while not to compare infertility with being estranged from your father, I felt similar pangs at friends’ weddings.
And it’s not just weddings. Even last year, I felt sad when I popped round to see a friend and her lovely dad was there fixing a leak in her bathroom and then changed the oil in her car. Another friend’s father looks after her two children one day a week while she’s at work, and they post endless photos of their trips to the zoo and the park on Facebook. How I would love a dad who did that. My father has never even met my two young daughters – his grandchildren – despite me emailing him pictures of them in the weeks after they were born. But, as a wise auntie once told me: you have the parents you have.
It’s been 10 years this August since my wedding day and in that time I have learnt a few things about marriage and family.
The first is, they come in all shapes and sizes. Whether your mum walks you down the aisle, or both parents, or a friend, a sibling, or nobody at all, don’t lose sight of who you have standing on either side of that aisle. In my case, my friends and family, who go a long way to make up for my father’s absence.
Lastly, I’ve learnt that a wedding day is just that – a day. OK, so my father didn’t walk me down the aisle. But at the end of that aisle stood a man who is kind, supportive and possibly the most brilliant, fun dad ever (I’m biased, but if you asked our girls they’d tell you the same thing).
And so I’m sure whoever ends up walking Meghan down the aisle this Saturday, Harry will prove to be just the same.