John wrote:
> After checking with a number of other Japanese friends, this is the
> phrase that pretty much was recommended by everyone, and the one I ended
> up using.  I'm sure I made a number of gaffes, but at least the outcome
> was the one I wanted.

I'm interested in the cultural phenomenon of asking the father for
permission. My wife and I didn't do it; we just said (together) to
both sets of parents "we want to get married". (And that was 40 years
ago this year.)

When my younger daughter got engaged a couple of years ago (at 26) there
apparently was some debate as to whether her 婚約者 should ask me first.
He didn't (thank goodness.)

-- 
Jim Breen        http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学