Sometimes a dad isn’t so tough

This whole blogging experience is rather weird. I know that it is me choosing what I post, but to be honest, I have been saying what is on my mind, rather than thinking too much about the image that I am presenting.

So far I seem to be exposing rather more of my “touchy feely” side than I would probably ever allow into the open in a normal conversation.

Yesterday, I spent the day at the wedding of one of Mrs Geek best friends. Now don’t get me wrong, I like to consider the bride and groom my friends, but if I were being honest I there in my capacity as “Partner” to the invitee.

This being said, I found myself welling up at certain points. What is happening to me, I am sure I used to be a “Bloke”. What’s more I have to confess that I was not entirely surprised.

I absolutely LOVE weddings! One of the things I love best about wedding photography is that I get to go to more weddings. I know it would not be original to say that my wedding day was the happiest day of my life, but clichés usually become clichés because they are so true. Along with the birth of my two children, I can’t conceive being happier.

But they do bring out my feminine side. And it would appear that my feminine side is a blubbering little girl.

It is only since getting married myself that I have found them difficult to maintain my masculinity. Before that I was an entirely unconfused young man.

There are a few bits that got me emotional; there was the fact that the Groom was the emotional type also. Seeing struggle with what I will admit was a great speech, brought it back to me. I wish I could lay claim to it being the speech that was my downfall. I fell at the vows, now this was not me reciting vows from memory, I was repeating what the priest had prompted, or at least I was attempting to whilst trying not to cry.

But a new development has entered the last few weddings that I have been to. I am now father to a little girl. Seeing the father of the bride, trying to hold it together while he “gives his daughter away”. Now I get that this is a long way away, being that she is 4, but I can feel the confused cocktail of pain and happiness that hew is going through. As much as he may deliriously be happy for her, there are other emotions there too. The overwhelming pride of the person she has become. And then there is the pain of facing the fact that she is not his little girl any more, and that as much as she may love you, you are no longer the number 1 man in her life.

I love my daughter to pieces, and I hope that when she grows up, she finds a wonderful partner, but even the fact her age does give me a while to come up with my speech, I am still not sure that I will be quite ready for her big day.

Heaven help me if the next one is a girl too.