When we look at Scripture, especially the more Godly examples, we see that the father of the groom (or his representative, such as the child’s uncle, etc.) assumes his responsibility to find, provide for, or in other ways direct his son toward a bride. There exists in Scripture times where this was not done, but these tend to be a result of sin, or some breakdown in the family.
The three examples that for furthest toward providing us with a Godly pattern of moving to marriage are that of God with Adam, Abraham with Isaac, and God with Christ.
In the story of Adam God takes all of the initiative. He has created Adam. He knows his need. He expresses it as, ‘it is not good that man should be alone’. He also makes the need clear to Adam by having him name all the creatures and see ‘there was not found an help meet for Adam’. Then he caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam so that Adam was not even awake during the process in which God provides him with a bride. Upon awakening, Adam instantly accepts his bide, recognizing the significance of what God has done, saying, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Adam was given no choice, no selection of potential brides to choose from, nor did he complain fo this lack. After all, who better to select a bride for Adam than God, the creator of all things?
Similarly in case of Christ and His bride. It was God, the Father almighty, who created and ordained the church, , the bride of Christ. Paul, speaking as Gods representative, says to the Corinthian church, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Christ indicates to us the nature of the process when he says to God the Father in the Garden, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” Each Christian, each part of the bride of Christ, is marked with the words ‘chosen … in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love’.
In a more human example Abraham saw the need of his son Isaac for a wife. As the son of the covenant, the child of promise, Abraham deliberately sought out a wife from his own family, sending his servant with specific instructions. Again in this story we see how God himself, acting through Abraham, acting through Abraham's servant, and through Rebecca, chose a wife, meeting Isaac's need. And we see Abraham repeating twice the injunction that Isaac not go down to get the wife himself, that he not be involved.