Father of the bride speech examples

"When Emma was four years old, she had a phase where she refused to hold my hand crossing the street. She was certain she could do it herself. She was wrong, and she knew she was wrong, and she held my hand anyway -- but only if she thought no one was watching.

I think about that a lot now.

She is still, in so many ways, the same person: capable of more than she lets on, too proud to admit when she needs someone, and quietly, privately grateful when the right person is there anyway.

Ryan is the right person. I watched him figure this out within the first year, which is more than most people manage in a lifetime.

What I want for your marriage is simple: be the person she holds onto when she thinks no one is watching. She will not always say she needs it. Trust me anyway.

To Emma and Ryan."

"I've been trying to figure out what to say for about six months. I've written and deleted this speech more times than I can count.

What I kept coming back to, every time, was one sentence: I could not be more proud of who she became.

Not the career, not the achievements. The person. The way she handles hard things. The way she shows up for the people she loves. The way she moves through the world with more integrity than most people manage at twice her age.

James: I've watched you with her for three years now. I want you to know that I see what she found. And I'm grateful she found it in you.

To my daughter, and to the life she's building. To Olivia and James."

"When Sophie was about seven, she told me she was going to marry someone better at directions than I am. She said this while I was driving the wrong way on a one-way street, which I felt was a premature assessment.

I have been thinking about that conversation ever since, because it turns out she was right on a level I didn't fully appreciate at the time. She was not just looking for someone who could read a map. She was looking for someone steady. Someone who knows where he's going and gets there without making everyone in the car anxious.

Michael is that person. He is annoyingly competent at most things. More importantly, he is kind about it, which is harder than it sounds.

Sophie: I have loved watching you become yourself. You turned out better than I had any right to expect.

Please raise your glasses. To Sophie and Michael."

"I have spent twenty-eight years learning how to be her father. The first few years were chaos. Then there was the period where I thought I had figured it out, which is when she grew up enough to prove me wrong. Then there was the long stretch where I was mostly just trying to keep up with who she was becoming.

What nobody told me, when they put her in my arms in the hospital, was that every year I would love her more and understand her less. Both things together. Always both things.

I understand her better now than I ever have. Because I've seen her with Tom. And the person she is with him -- more patient, more settled, more herself than I've seen her -- tells me something I've been waiting to know for years: she found it.

Tom, she is the best thing I have done in my life. I am handing that off to you with considerable confidence, which is not something I give easily.

To my daughter, and to the man she chose. To Sophie and Tom."

"I am not a sentimental man. My daughter will tell you that. Most people in this room will tell you that.

So when I say what I am about to say, I want you to understand that it took some effort. And that I mean every word of it.

Charlotte: I am so proud of you. Not of the things you've done, though those are real and they matter. I am proud of who you are. The person you've been, quietly, consistently, for as long as I've known you. Which is your whole life.

And Mark: I've watched you with her for two years. You are attentive in the ways that matter and relaxed about the ways that don't. I know what that took to find, even if she doesn't always know how to say it.

I'll stop there, because I said I'd keep it short and I meant it.

To Charlotte and Mark."

"I did not meet her until she was nine. By that point, she already had opinions, a favorite cereal, and a very clear sense of who she was and who she was not.

I had the unusual experience of falling in love with a person, and then, slowly, falling in love with her daughter too. Not in the same way. But no less completely.

She gave me a chance I did not assume I would get. I have been trying to be worthy of it ever since.

Today she is marrying someone who I think understands what it means to earn something over time. James: the fact that she chose you, carefully and with full information, tells me more about your character than anything I've observed directly. She does not choose carelessly.

To Amelia and James. May your life together be built the same way the best things are: slowly, with intention, and with a lot of love."