A labelled sample. Claire, Sam, Helen and the father are made up, and so are the stories; a real speech is written only from the stories you send. About 650 words, five minutes read out loud. Written from these notes: “Claire. Stubborn from day one. Taught herself to ride a bike after I gave up. Nurse now, works nights. Her mum would have loved today. Sam is calm, good for her. Welcome everyone, thank the caterers.”
Sample father of the bride speech: Claire and Sam
Good evening, everyone. For those who don't know me, I'm Peter, Claire's dad, and on behalf of our family I want to welcome you all, and to thank Sam's parents, Jo and Mike, for everything they have done to make today what it is. Jo, the flowers are yours and everybody has noticed. Mike, the bar is yours and everybody has noticed that too.
Claire learned to ride a bike the week I gave up teaching her. I had spent three Saturdays running behind that bike, holding the saddle, letting go, picking her up, being told off for letting go. On the fourth Saturday I said we would try again next year. On the Sunday morning I came out of the house and she was already at the end of the road, wobbling, furious, and not falling off. She was six. I have spent the thirty years since then running to catch up with her, and I would not have had it any other way.
That is who she is. She decides, and then she does it, and then she tells you about it afterwards. She decided to be a nurse at fourteen, after a week on a ward visiting her grandmother, and nobody has been able to talk her out of a thing since. She works nights. She comes home at eight in the morning with stories she can't tell us and a face that tells us anyway, and then she sleeps for four hours and goes to somebody's birthday. I don't know how she does it. I do know that there are people in this town who are alive because she is stubborn, and I would like them to know that it started with a bicycle.
There is someone who should be standing here with me, and she isn't. Helen would have loved today. She would have had something to say about my tie, and she would have been right. I am not going to say much more than that, because Claire asked me not to make everyone cry before the food, and when Claire asks for something, you have all just heard how that goes. But Helen is here in the way Claire laughs, which is loudly and at the wrong moments, and that is enough for me.
And then there is Sam. The first time Claire brought Sam home, I had a speech ready. Fathers do. I had questions. I did not get to ask any of them, because Sam spent the whole of lunch asking me about the allotment, and by the time the plates were cleared I had promised him half my runner beans. I have been trying to work out ever since whether he was interested or just clever, and I have decided it doesn't matter, because he has kept turning up, every week, for six years, and he still asks about the beans.
Sam, you are calm. You know that about yourself. What you may not know is what it has done for her. She still decides, and she still does it, but now she sleeps first. She rings us on a Tuesday for no reason. She has stopped treating the future as something that happens to other people. We noticed. We have been waiting a long time for someone who could keep up with her without trying to slow her down, and here you are.
Claire, you got to the end of the road on your own. You always will. I am just glad that this time you have somebody riding next to you.
So would you all please stand, and raise your glasses, to the two people who got here first and waited for the rest of us to catch up. To Claire and Sam.
To the bride and groom.
Reading copy: the speech also comes as a large-type page with one sentence per line and a pause mark before the Helen paragraph and before the toast.