Here Comes the Bride — and the Groom

[W]hen the back doors of St. Mary’s Church opened for the big reveal, Liz Holman wasn’t standing with her dad; he was already seated in his pew, next to her mother.

Instead, the bride was locked arm-in-arm with her groom, Greg Westerhaus. And together, as the choir sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, the couple walked to the altar.

The move might strike some as a modernity-motivated break from religious tradition. But contrary to popular belief, the father-of-the-bride escorting and then “giving away” his daughter at the altar is not called for by the Catholic Church — it’s merely an American cultural convention. 

And a growing number of Catholic couples like the Westerhauses are bypassing the custom in favor of what they see as an entrance procession that’s truer to the Church’s vision of matrimony.