| ARGHH!! This one sounds only too familiar!...
Paul's parents have been divorced for many years, but there is still
(shall we say...) bad feelings between them. This added a level of
complexity to our wedding (7 years ago now). Paul decided to do what
his younger sister, who married a few months before we did, decided: he
walked down the aisle with his mother and his only surviving
grandparent (his mother's mother; she died about a month ago, sad to
say, a much-beloved lady). His father, who remarried many years ago,
attended alone (this was a dirty trick on Paul's step-mother, who is a
nice person, but war would have erupted if she had attended. Sigh.).
I had to walk alone, with my parents one step behind me: the skirt of
my gown is so full that I took up the whole aisle! My folks walked
right behind the train of it. My mother really needed to lean on my
father anyhow; she had just had back surgery.
We also had to avoid having a "receiving line" (I think they are pretty
silly anyhow) where Paul's parents would have had to stand near each
other. We did that by following the tradition of being "secluded" for
seven minutes after the ceremony (what we were actually doing was
gobbling up the tray of food the caterer brought in to where we were
waiting out the prescribed time - we had both fasted before the
ceremony, and were starving), so when we entered the reception,
everyone was already inside, waiting for us to sit in our "thrones" so
they could dance around us (we have some funny pictures of us being
hoisted up into the air for this! - if you have met me, you know that I
am just under 6' tall, several inches bigger than Paul, and there are
some great shots of Paul's uncle gritting his teeth as he set his
shoulder under the rungs of my chair - it all worked, though, the old
fellow is stronger than he looks!). Presto, no receiving line!
You would think that people could set aside their differences for a few
hours, especially for a family celebration, but they aren't always able
to. Life would be much more pleasant! I hope you are able to work
something out so that your folks can "save face" and you can still
include them both in your wedding. It is really sad business, I know.
We had it somewhat easier than you do since we paid for everything
ourselves; we only had to deal with people threatening to not attend if
they didn't like how we had worked things out.
/Charlotte
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| The custom of parents walking down the aisle has been adopted from
the non-Jewish world, so there's no halachic opinion on it as such.
However, embarrassing someone is considered a grave sin.
Perhaps you could get someone he respects (maybe a rabbi?) to talk
to him. I don't he'd be swayed by your saying, "I asked in BAGELS,
and the vote was 4-2 that you should walk down the aisle with me
and my mother."
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| (Gevalt! I'm actually leaving readonly status to answer this!:-)
First of all, Mazal Tov to both you and your husband-to-be !
If I'm interpreting your question right, what you're explicitly asking us
for is validation for your desire to have both your parents
accompany you down the aisle. Well, I concur: for the reason you
gave: he's not accompanying his ex-wife, he's accompanying *you*.
Also, the tradition of *both* parents accompanying the bride and
groom, while it may have come from non-Jews (and I'd like to see
substantiation of that, please, .2!), is a LONG standing Jewish
tradition (at least among the Ashkenazim). Bucking tradition at a
time like this is not calculated to create "Shalom BaBayit", and
you could tell him that people will infer that he is devoid of
support for Jewish culture and tradition, or that he disapproves
of the marriage.
Also, how does your stepmother feel about this? If she is
willing, maybe you can enlist her help.
However, I heard another question here, and I'm going to answer
that one too, gratis (no, don't thank me :-), namely: how do you
reconcile your wish to have your wedding *your* way with his attempted
blackmail to refuse to help pay for it. And the answer is, you
probably can't, unless you can persuade him. (Actually, I don't
even understand the threat -- how can you *force* him into
walking down the aisle with you, regardless of who pays?)
You are going to have a lot of problems if you let him continue with
this kind of threat against anything he doesn't want to do.
Perhaps you should downscale your wedding plans, so you don't
need his financial support -- after all, if he's not going to
give you emotional support when you most need it, why let him try
to buy it?
Good luck with your plans; please let us know what happens.
Bobbi, who if she ever gets "hitched" again, will do it in a
state of pilgashut (sp?) rather than nissuin.
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| Well, In my purely egoistic heart, my first feeling was:
Ask your father to think about YOU for just one day, rather than HIM,
for the rest of this year. If he loves you as much as you love him
(witness your desire to have HIM guiding you), he should be accepting.
It's YOUR day, innit?
Prioritisingly yours,
Chris
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