When my fiancée and I started planning our wedding, I thought the hardest part would be choosing between chocolate or vanilla cake, or whether we should have a beach or garden ceremony.

I never imagined the real conflict would revolve around the one person who mattered most in my life — my daughter. I thought a wedding was supposed to be a celebration of love, unity, and the beginning of a shared future.

But instead, it forced me to question everything I thought I knew about the woman I was planning to marry. At 45, I wasn’t naïve about relationships.

I’d been through the storm of love and loss. I’d experienced the joy of falling in love, the pain of divorce, and the ongoing responsibility of being a father.

Through it all, the one constant in my life — the one light that never dimmed — was my 11-year-old daughter, Paige. Paige is my everything.

She’s smart in a way that surprises you, funny without trying, and carries a kind of…