In a gesture that has touched hearts around the world, a father fulfilled a promise he made nearly a quarter of a century earlier by wearing a handmade paper necktie created by his then-five-year-old daughter on her wedding day.
Megan Becker-Towns, 29, married Travis Towns on October 29, 2021, in their hometown of Appleton. During the father-daughter dance at the reception, her father, Glenn Becker, appeared wearing the colorful, laminated paper tie she had made for him as a kindergarten art project in 1997.
The moment left the bride in tears.
“I was completely shocked,” Megan later recalled. “The only two people who knew of what was happening were my parents. Everyone had tears in their eyes; I started to cry in my dad’s arms.”
The story began in the summer of 1997 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As a final art project of the school year timed around Father’s Day, Megan’s class made paper neckties. Using construction paper and crayons, the five-year-old carefully crafted one for her dad. Teachers laminated the ties and attached a length of yarn so the children could actually wear them.
When Megan presented the gift, Glenn was genuinely moved. He told her how proud he was and made a promise that would stay with the family for decades: he would keep the tie and wear it on her wedding day.
True to his word, Glenn hung the paper necktie on the mirror in his bedroom, where it remained for years alongside family photographs. From time to time he would take it down, dust it off, and remind his daughter of the pledge. As a little girl, Megan was delighted. As a teenager, she mostly rolled her eyes, treating it as one of her father’s ongoing jokes.
In 2018, Glenn and his wife Jeannette moved from Oshkosh to Appleton. After the move, Megan noticed the tie was no longer in its usual place. When she asked about it, her father told her it had been “lost in the move.” She was disappointed but believed him.
In reality, her mother had carefully packed the keepsake away. Glenn later retrieved it and hid it in his tool chest in the garage, determined to keep the surprise intact for the right moment.
That moment arrived after Travis Towns asked Glenn for permission to propose. On the couple’s wedding day, as the father-daughter dance approached, Glenn briefly left the floor. When he returned, the 24-year-old paper tie was around his neck.
Megan has described the surprise as one of her two favorite moments of the entire wedding. The other was seeing her husband’s face and hearing him say “You are so beautiful” as she walked down the aisle.
She has long spoken of her close bond with her father. Glenn never missed her sports games or dance recitals. He took her fishing and painting, helped her fix things around the house, and once even gave her his warmest winter socks after picking her up from a school dance on a bitterly cold night. Megan, who has two sisters and three brothers, calls him “honestly the best dad” and says the siblings are “the luckiest kids ever.”
Megan works as an email marketing specialist at the same catalog company where she met Travis, a plastics factory worker. Both are originally from the Oshkosh area and have since settled in Appleton.
Photographs of the emotional dance — Glenn in formal attire with the crayon-colored paper tie clearly visible, and Megan overcome with emotion in his arms — were shared by the family and quickly spread online. The story continues to resurface years later as a simple, powerful reminder of a father’s quiet faithfulness.
What began as a child’s craft project made of paper, crayons, and yarn became, 24 years later, a symbol of enduring love and a promise kept.
