On the morning of the wedding, your father will put on a suit he's chosen carefully, prouder than he knows how to say. He's raised the groom; today he watches him marry. Most fathers of the groom don't expect a gift at all — which is why a small, well-chosen one lands the way it does.

A pocket square isn't handed over and put away. He folds it, puts it in his breast pocket, and wears it — in the ceremony, in the photographs, at the head table. Embroidered on it: his initials and the date his son got married.