D is for Dad

Oh we know, the obvious one was 'Dress', but how could we presume to blog about such a personal choice? Our advice? Go with your instincts and choose the one that makes someone cry - in a good way, obviously. See, not particularly groundbreaking , which is why we went for Dad!

Now Dads are great, but their greatness is often a double-edged sword. They're great in those hero-rescuer-protector-entertainer-first love kind of ways. But they are also great in their very own 'Dad' ways - great sense of fashion, humour, fairplay, propriety and duty, all of which are inevitably unique to the individual Dad, thus proving slightly troublesome to the bride-to-be. Does your Dad think his caramel-brown 'best' suit that has been lingering at the back of the walk-in for fifteen years will 'do for one last outing'? Is he spending hours honing jokes for his speech that come from the book that must be handed out at the birth of your first child, because only daddies tell them and only daddies laugh at them? Is he refusing to acknowledge that you're a big girl and still making your groom sleep in the spare room? Ah, the perils of trying to get Dad to fall in line on the big day.

But do you know what? And we're risking a sniffle here... we hope you cherish every awkward, indulgent, stubborn, erratic, wonderful moment of trying to shoehorn your Dad into your plans. Because no matter if he has to wear a corset to do up the suit he claims still fits, or his jokes fall flat while he sips a few too many bubbles, or he insists on having a 'serious talk' with your husband-to-be the night before the wedding, he's your Dad, and that moment when he catches his first glimpse of you in your dress and sees his five year-old, gap-toothed, grinning girl all grown up...well, that moment will be worth it.

Illustries' Emma wasn't lucky enough to have that moment as her Dad took the somewhat dramatic step of passing away a few months before the wedding just to avoid fitting in. He was sorely missed, but she knew he would have wanted the show to go on so she bucked herself up and drafted in plenty of support - Mum, to give her away, sisters, to give a speech. And they were perfect, of course. Just not him.

So, cherish your Dad and all his foibles, embrace his eccentricities, celebrate his sentmentality, and just jettison his jokes. Because when you look back, we think what you'll remember is how reassuring that arm felt as you begin your walk to your new husband - not the fact that it was covered in scratchy caramel nylon...