Weddingbee

My dad is being incredibly generous and paying for almost our entire wedding; I should make that clear right away. My FH and I are both graduate students with very little disposable income, and we’re really, really grateful to my dad for offering to do this.

Now, here’s the thing: I realize that since Dad is paying, he gets the final vote in a lot of respects, and I can roll with that. I’m really pretty easy going. But he has selected the venues, the caterer, and the menus for the barbecue (taking the place of a rehearsal dinner) and reception. Last week he called to tell me what music we would have at the ceremony; today he told me our save-the-dates and wedding website were juvenile and embarrassing, and he didn’t want any of the guests he’s inviting to see them. He’s overruling many of the details we wanted to include because he thinks they’re tacky (we wanted the groomsmen to wear brightly colored kicks, for example, and to include some old-school country duets like “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” in the second hour of the reception). I understand his point of view, but the wedding he wants is straight out of Emily Post (no offense to Emily), and not really reflective of us at all. My dad is a perfectionist and very controlling, and has always made me feel like nothing I do is quite good enough, so he tells me something is tacky and I feel myself regressing to a 7-year-old being lectured for getting 95 on her spelling test, you know? I just cave and do whatever he wants.

Any advice? I mean, is that what I should be doing, since he’s footing the bill?

Taye

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