I agree with everything you said there. But if the bride is determined to have her “perfect day” (whatever that is, in her mind) I say try to give it to her.
Within reason, of course! Don’t alienate a daughter over something relatively minor. But if she demands you take out a mortgage to fund a $150,000 wedding in Tahiti, that might be a hill to die on.
Your insistence that rejecting her father’s traditonal role in a church wedding is “relatively minor” is way off base. It’s a cut to the heart, and a public display of indifference to his place in her life in front on all their family and friends.
You’ve mentioned the “minor” thing that “tore your family apart.” Starting to think it was not so minor. Without naming names, can you clue us in as to what it was?