Dad refuses to pay for daughter's wedding: I don't know where I went wrong (2024)

A father has sparked an intense debate after revealing why he now refuses to pay for his daughter's wedding.

Wedding days are often ripe for family bickering, aesthetics, attendance, and, notably, financial conflicts.

And while some traditions state the father is supposed to pay for the wedding, one dad on Reddit is not having it.

TikToker @TheAuditStrikesBack retold a situation from a recent Reddit post on why a dad took back his offer to pay for his daughter's wedding after she refused to have him walk her down the aisle.

Several conversations surrounding this topic have popped up on Am I The A****** Reddit threads, signaling a larger debate over tradition and financial support in the modern world.

In @TheAuditStrikesBack's video, he shares how the dad was blindsided to learn his daughter didn't want him to walk down the aisle.

"I raised her to be an independent thinker, and she's going to come at me with some brainwashed bullcr*p," the TikToker said in the video. "I don't know where I went wrong."

One afternoon, the dad said he heard his wife tell the daughter she'd try not to cry when the father walked her down the aisle. That's when the daughter "stopped her dead in her tracks" and said she wasn't "property" so there would be no walking her down the aisle.

"My wife did her best to hide her devastation," @TheAuditStrikesBack said. "One of the most important roles of my life, taken away from me."

He went on to say it was a "smack in the face" after what the family has done for the daughter, especially as they've never treated her like "property."

In @TheAuditStrikesBack's video, the dad was hanging out with a friend who proposed: "If she's so independent, why don't you make her pay for it herself?"

"I was like, no, you know what, that's a really good idea," he said.

"It's not about making her do what I want her to do," the TikToker said, posing as the father. "It's about making her realize the effect that she has on the people around her. If your selfishness is going to cause pain, then it's going to have to limit my generosity."

The father added that he hopes his daughter comes around and thinks the situation through so that he can walk her down the aisle.

"Traditions are important," he added.

Reactions to the situation were varied online.

Some suggested that while the daughter was right that the dad used to walk the woman down the aisle as a symbol of her as property, this is no longer what the act means.

"Fathers don't give daughters away as a piece of property, but as a large piece of their heart," one TikTok user wrote.

From a psychological background, the conflict makes sense considering the daughter's desire for autonomy as well as a larger societal shift in women's roles, experts say.

Brent Metcalf, a clinical social worker and the owner of Tri-Star Counseling in Kingsport, Tennessee, said in this situation, there's "no clear right or wrong," but instead an "opportunity for dialogue."

"The father clearly has a more traditional view of his participation in the wedding itself, by giving his daughter away, while the daughter has a more progressive view, that the act of 'giving away' implies a certain level of proprietary ownership," Erin Phillips, a clinical social worker with Thriveworks, told Newsweek.

As the video went viral, it became clear the conflict is becoming more common than ever as younger generations used to more progressive times reject traditional values.

"In short, the wedding day is for the bride and groom and what they want their celebration to look like," Phillips said. "While dad isn't necessarily wrong in his refusal to pay since he can't give his daughter away, it would be sad for everyone involved if his inability to let go of the traditional roles left a damper on his daughter's celebration."

It's likely the father dreamt of the day he'd walk his daughter down the aisle, and he knew it would be a special moment he cherished forever, Renee Lyon, a therapist at Alberta-based Truepath Counselling, told Newsweek.

"He might even view it as embarrassing. What would his friends and family members think? It might be a hit to his ego," Lyon said.

While the father is not obligated to pay for the wedding, it would appear as a retaliatory move if he had previously agreed to it.

"Neither of them are wrong about their feelings," Lyon said. "They both had expectations that aren't being met and it's difficult to deal with the disappointment of that."

As the culture changes, though, there are bound to be more conflicts like this, especially between Baby Boomer parents and their millennial and Gen Z children.

"I could completely see a dad saying, "That is fine if you want to be independent and walk yourself down the aisle. I support that. You can independently pay for the whole thing too," Kentucky-based family therapist Deedee Cummings told Newsweek.

"There truly is no right or wrong way to hold a wedding, but there is tradition, and that is a hard mold to break sometimes in the minds of parents and children."