Here comes the bride – on (gulp) my arm

I must admit, the left turn signal was pink as I rolled through the busy intersection. I had a minivan full of recently made-up bridesmaids, and I damned sure wasn’t going to be the guy to botch things up, traffic signal or not.

We were running late; their all-morning-and-into-the-afternoon professional beauty makeover in my dining room had gone long. And I, with a growing sense of melancholy, was delivering the vital cargo to the church as the clock ticked. Besides, I figured I could talk my way out of a ticket, explaining my predicament as five excited young ladies in green dresses looked on from behind luxuriant eyelashes.

Such is the duty of Father of the Bride, a job description imbued with nostalgia and romance ever since Spencer Tracy played the role in 1950 (and reinforced for later generations by Steve Martin 41 years later).

In addition to their other duties, Fathers-of-the-Bride get to answer some fairly predictable queries:

Did you cry? Nope. I was determined not to blubber in public, so I went all 1950s guys-don’t-cry mode and resisted.

Do you like the groom? Sometimes I’d say, “No!” — just to throw off the person asking an inherently dumb question. Either the answer is, (A) “I don’t like him, but why must you bring up a sore subject like that?” Or (B) “I like him, but now that you ask, is there something I should know?” Instead, I go with (C), the truth. “I like him. He grew on me.”

Did you work hard to pull this off? No easiest thing I ever did. My wife, Julie, and my daughter, Emma, the bride, did it all.

Julie did perhaps 25 percent of the planning and work. Emma did 77 percent. I did negative 2 percent, coming up with last-minute ideas/objections/suggestions that they were obliged to undo or actively ignore.

Besides, Emma was making lists at age three. She knew exactly what she wanted – from picking the husband, to the cut of the dress to appetizers at the reception. Check, check, check.

Will, the kid she married, is an accomplished young man, but for this article we’ll keep him at “kid” status. He was good enough to call beforehand and ask if he could marry my daughter. I liked that: It was old-school, and it was a bonus that he sought advice on how to pull off a surprise proposal. We Torpys love plotting surprises, although we hate being the recipient.

Will and Emma met at Marist High School, so I guess the 50 aggregate years of paying Catholic school tuition and brown-bagging lunches are paying off. (Yes that’s 5-Oh! We have four kids.)

Just before the ceremony, I was asked to go into a side-room at St. Thomas More church. My daughter wanted to see me before we went on. I walked into a cramped room that held five bridesmaids, three grandmothers and the Mother of the Bride, and there she was. She looked like she had walked out of a bridal magazine photo shoot, with her tailored wedding dress, veil, huge eyes and a grin. Then she started quivering.

As I hugged her, she struggled not to ruin her expensive makeup job. I glanced out the window, down into the parish courtyard below, where 19 years ago she was dressed in saddle shoes and a blue plaid Catholic school jumper, crying and hugging her mother’s leg to postpone her first day of kindergarten. It was a week after the Atlanta Olympics, a time that seems like both a century ago and just the other day.

As Father of the Bride, your main duty (other than stroking a check) is to walk your daughter down the aisle to thunderous organ music as everyone gawks. And then you give her away, which is an odd term. Historically, it was more of a trade. I think you got goats and a donkey in return for giving up the daughter. Or maybe you gave the groom’s family the goats if she was unmarryable.

Regardless, it’s an important moment – one of only a handful of times that one goes up the aisle of a Catholic church with all eyes on you. Next time, I supposes I’ll be in a box.

But this was no time to be wistful. Well, actually it was. Waiting with her alone and out of sight in the church narthex as the other parents, grandmothers and bridesmaids walked down the aisle, it was only natural for a mental video loop to run through my brain.

There’s the clip of me and Julie, hurrying to the hospital because Emma is a preemie, and there are problems. There’s Emma, riding her big-wheel down the stairs after saying, “Dad, watch this!”

There are hours of Disney movies. The Girl Scouts. The first puppy, braces and dances.

There are the awkward teen-aged years of her trying to fit into a new school while her parents worry for her feelings but stay out of it, because kids must try to work out their own issues. There’s the godawful basketball team.

There’s her coddling her little brothers. And torturing them. There’s the graduations and the time all eyes were wet with the speech she made upon leaving Saint Thomas More.

And there’s even the kitchen sink sprayer, rubber-banded and aimed to drench whoever turns on the faucet. Remember, we like surprises at someone else’s expense.

I'm proud of her. She went through UGA, got a master's and then a job in San Francisco. She and the kid now live in an apartment near the Golden Gate Bridge. He's a Tech grad and starting a techie job there. She – I mean they – have carved out a road map to the future. They're doing what kids are supposed to do.