When we got engaged, we decided to have a small, nice wedding at a local park. We didn’t ask my family for a single dime. We paid for the catering, the cheap flowers, and my simple dress ourselves.

But then, my father called me three months before the wedding. He didn’t ask how planning was going.

He just said that Leo needed twelve thousand dollars for a down payment on his venue. Since I wasn’t spending much on my little backyard party, he told me I needed to contribute.

I remember sitting on my living room floor, staring at my worn-out rug, feeling this physical ache in my chest. My jaw felt so tight it ached.

I told him no. I told him we didn’t have that kind of money.

My father didn’t scream. He just said that if I couldn’t support this family, I shouldn’t expect them to support me. That was the last time we spoke before my wedding.

The day of the wedding was beautiful, but it was also incredibly quiet.

We had eighty chairs set up. On the left side, where my family was supposed to sit, there was nothing. Just empty green grass.

My father had called my aunts, my uncles, and even my cousins, telling them the wedding was postponed because Marcus and I were having relationship issues.

Nobody called me to check. They just took his word for it. Not a single text. Not a single phone call.

I stood there in my white dress, looking at those empty chairs, and my stomach dropped. But I didn’t cry. I held Marcus’s hand, and we got married anyway.

At the reception, we used the silver cake server. I had gone to my father’s house the week before while he was at work, used my spare key, and taken it from his unlocked desk drawer.

I even left a note on his kitchen counter stating I was taking Grandma’s cake server for the wedding. He never replied. I assumed he didn’t care.