Father of the bride speech examples

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. For those of you I haven’t met yet, I’m David, and I’m Emily’s father — which today is comfortably the best job in the room.

On behalf of my wife Susan and myself, thank you all for coming. Some of you have travelled a very long way. Thank you to everyone who helped put today together, and thank you in particular to Mark’s parents, Alan and Jean, for their generosity and for raising the young man we’re very glad to be welcoming into our family.

Emily, you look beautiful. Your mother said that this morning and I said “yes” and then couldn’t say anything else for a while, so I’m getting it in properly now.

People will tell you that the years go quickly. They don’t tell you which bits you’ll keep. I don’t remember much about her exam results. I remember her aged seven, walking home from school, explaining an argument she’d had with a boy in her class about whether it was fair that only he got to be goalkeeper. She was right, incidentally. She generally is, and she has never let it go unmentioned.

Mark. We liked you immediately, which was inconvenient, because I had been looking forward to being difficult about it. You are patient with her, you are kind to her mother, and you laugh at my jokes with what I choose to believe is sincerity.

Emily, you have been a joy from the first day. Mark, look after her, and let her look after you.

Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding and raise your glasses — to Emily and Mark.

Good evening, everyone. I’m Peter, Sarah’s dad. Thank you all for being here, and thank you to everyone who helped make today happen.

I’m not much of a speaker, so I’ll say three things and sit down.

The first is that Sarah looks wonderful, and I’m very proud of her. Not just today — generally, and for a long time.

The second is that we think a great deal of Jamie, and of his family, and we’re glad to be joined to them.

The third is that I hope the two of you have as good a time of it as her mother and I have had. That’s the whole wish.

Please raise your glasses — to Sarah and Jamie.

Good evening. I’m Ian, the father of the bride, and I’ve been told I have four minutes, which my wife assures me is four minutes longer than I need.

Being the father of the bride is a strange role. You have almost no responsibilities and you are somehow still terrified. My main duty today was to walk in a straight line at a slow speed, and I practised.

Now, Lucy. Lucy was an expensive child. She had opinions about brands at four. At eleven she negotiated her pocket money upward using a chart. At sixteen she informed me that the car was “basically hers”, and I want to note for the record that I never agreed to that and yet somehow it became true.

So when she rang to say she’d met a man who worked in insurance, I thought: excellent. Sensible. Cautious. Someone who understands risk.

And then I met Ben, and Ben has a motorbike, and I realised I’d been comprehensively misled.

Ben, you’re a good man and we’re delighted. Lucy, you have been the best thing in our lives since the day you arrived and started running up costs.

Everyone, please be upstanding — to Lucy and Ben.

Good evening. I’m Robert, and Alice is my only child, so I have had exactly one go at this and no practice run.

When you have one, you don’t know what’s normal. You have nothing to compare her to. So for twenty-eight years I’ve simply thought that everything Alice does is extraordinary, and I’ve been told by other parents that this is a known condition and there is no cure.

What I do know is this. She was a serious little girl. She read early and she worried early, and I spent a lot of her childhood trying to persuade her that most things would be all right. I’m not sure I ever convinced her.

Then a few years ago I noticed she’d stopped worrying so much. She was lighter. She laughed more on the phone. And it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out that the reason was called Tom.

Tom, you did the thing I spent twenty-five years failing to do. I won’t forget that.

Alice, you have been the whole of it for your mother and me. Ladies and gentlemen — to Alice and Tom.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and welcome. I’m George, father of the bride, and on behalf of Helen and myself, thank you all for joining us.

I want to spend most of my few minutes on something other than my own daughter, which I appreciate is unusual.

Today two families are joined, and that is not a form of words. Priya’s parents, Raj and Meera, have shown us nothing but warmth from the first evening we met, which was in their home, over a meal that I am still thinking about. You raised a son who is thoughtful, who is steady, and who is visibly good to our daughter, and that tells us everything we need to know about the house he grew up in.

Arjun, you are welcome in our family, without reservation and without conditions. And Priya — you have been welcomed into theirs in the same way, and Helen and I are more grateful for that than we’ve properly said.

Two families, one table, from today onwards.

Please raise your glasses — to Priya and Arjun, and to all of us.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here. I’m Martin, Rosie’s dad.

Before anything else. Rosie’s mother, Anne, should have been sitting there, and she isn’t, and all of us feel it. She would have been unbearable today — she’d have cried through the entire ceremony and then told everyone she hadn’t. We’re going to have a good day anyway, because that is precisely what she’d have insisted on.

Rosie, you are so like her. You have her handwriting and her terrible sense of direction and her habit of feeding anyone who comes to the door. And you have her way of making a room feel easier when you walk into it. That was her best thing and it is now your best thing.

The last few years have asked a lot of you and you have carried it. I have watched you do it and I have not always said so.

Callum, you have been steady through all of it. Thank you doesn’t cover it, so I’ll just say we’re very glad it’s you.

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand — to Rosie and Callum.

Good evening. I’m Nick. I’ve been asked to speak today, and I want to say at the start that I know exactly what I am and what I’m not.

I met Zara when she was fourteen, which is not an age at which anyone wants a new adult in the house. She was polite to me for about two years, which I thought was generous at the time and think is remarkable now.

I never tried to be her father. She has one, he’s here, and he’s been a good one. What I tried to be was reliable — there on time, there when I said, there when it was dull. That was the only thing I had to offer and it took years to be worth anything.

Then about five years ago she rang me about a problem at work, and she rang me first, and I had to go and sit down.

Zara, being asked to speak today is one of the great honours of my life, and I know what it cost you to offer it.

Elliot, she is worth every bit of patience. Everyone — to Zara and Elliot.

I’m Colin, Beth’s father. Thank you all for coming — it means a great deal to see this many people who care about her in one room.

Beth, you look lovely, and I’m proud of you. Harry, welcome; we think you’re a good one.

Please raise your glasses. To Beth and Harry.