getting permission

This is how the whole marriage thing started: My girlfriend (now my wife) and I drove to Maryland one weekend in May to see the Sheep and Wool Festival. My girl loves knitting so we took her knitting teachers with us to this festival. The real reason we were going though was for me to ask her dad for permission to marry her. We had lunch with her parents, brother and sister-in-law at Gertrude's Cafe at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I told everyone I had an announcement to make. I announced that I love their daughter very much and that I always felt very welcomed by their family. I then requested permission from the father and the mother to marry their baby. Silence. No answer. I should say the dude doesn't speak English too well. So I tried again. Once again silence. Now her mom chimes in and says it's O.K. but I still want to know what the dad thinks. Finally he speaks up and he says "thank you." I think, thank you for what? Is he thankful that I've stopped asking for his daughter's hand in marrige? Is he thankful that I finally shut up and now he can order food? This is all quite humiliating. My girlfriend is laughing because she is happy that everyone is humiliated, especially me. He suddenly seemed pleased for no real reason and at this point says I can marry his nutty daughter. All in all I give it a six on a scale of one to ten. It probably could have gone much worse. In the end, everyone got what they wanted. I got permission to marry his little girl, he got the crab cakes with a small salad and rasberry sorbet.