If your father was late for your wedding, would you start without him? Carissa’s father is chronically late for everything. When it came to her wedding, she told him that if he was late she was going to start without him. So when he was 20 minutes late, she had her uncle walk her down the aisle. Her father is devastated and now she feels guilty. But was she wrong?
Ayla Brown: Good morning, Carissa. I hear you are a newlywed bride. How are you? Congrats.
Carissa: Hi. Thank you. Yes, I am. Thank you so much.
Ayla Brown: What happened at the wedding, though? That’s what I really want to talk about today.
Carissa: Something happened with my dad. I really, really love my dad. My dad is a great guy. I just want to start off by saying that.
Ayla Brown: Start off with that good.
Carissa: He loves me so much, but he does have this tendency to basically be late to everything or, like, most really important moments in my life. Like, for example, in middle school, when I had this softball championship, he missed that. He wasn’t there. At my prom, when all of the parents were taking pictures. He wasn’t there for that. Okay. Even my graduation, he showed up super late.
Ayla Brown: Those are big events in a girl young girl’s life. I get why that would be frustrating.
Carissa: Thank you. It’s just something that he’s always done, and it’s just always bothered me. But like I said, he is a really great guy. Everyone in town knows him as the guy that will help anyone around him and just drop anything for anyone around him. He is so generous. And I got married. Memorial Day weekend.
Ayla Brown: That’s amazing.
Carissa: Thank you. Thank you so much. And I told him that if my dad was late to my wedding, that I would walk down the aisle without him.
Ayla Brown: Wow. Okay. Because you know that he has a tendency of being late, and you’re like, Dad, if you’re late, I’m going down without you.
Carissa: Exactly.
Ayla Brown: So I feel like I already know what happened. Was he late?
Carissa: Yes. He showed up 25 minutes into the ceremony.
Ayla Brown: Did you wait for him?
Carissa: No.
Ayla Brown: Wow.
Carissa: I had my uncle walk me down the aisle.
Ayla Brown: Are you the only child? Are you his only girl where he would walk you down the aisle and it would be the first and only time for him?
Carissa: Yes. So it was a huge, important moment for both of us. But he wasn’t there for it. And I told him that if this happened, that he would miss this opportunity with me.
Ayla Brown: What was he doing? Why was he late? If you don’t mind me asking? Sorry, I’m getting a little fired up. But like it was, if it was important to him and important to you, where was he?
Carissa: He told me at the ceremony that he was on his way to the church and he saw somebody going to the wedding that had a flat tire. So, you know, he pulled me aside and he was explaining all of these things about why he was late.
Ayla Brown: So he was generously, selflessly helping someone else get to the church. It wasn’t even like he was late because of whatever reason he was actually helping someone out. That’s so kind, but not kind in your perspective.
Carissa: When we were talking, I told him. I said that you had to be here at 2 p.m. and that if you weren’t, then you weren’t thinking of me. I gave him this ultimatum.
