My Dad, without a doubt, gave one of the longest wedding speeches in history on my wedding day. I literally had to refill my drink. Its funny I remember even then knowing that this speech was incredibly special.
I knew in that moment just how lucky I was. I had the kind of Dad that would put that much thought and that much effort into giving his little girl away. As he read each page I imagined him sitting at his desk at home the night before going over it a hundred times until he thought it was perfect. As he always said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right."
I found this speech on his computer the other day and I would like to share it with you. You might want to grab a drink. ;)
Father of The Bride Speech
"I’ll try to keep this brief. Hopefully I won’t bore you all to tears.
I’d like to begin by thanking everyone for being here today to celebrate Melissa & Andy’s wedding and the beginning of their new life together. I think they make an awesome couple don’t you?
(pause for response)
I spent a lot of time last night and earlier today thinking about what I might say here tonight and I did a lot of reflecting back on Melissa’s childhood and all the things that happened along the way.
Truth is, I pretty much missed the first four months of her life. About a month before she was born, my job situation suddenly changed and I was faced with either being laid off or accepting a temporary job in Tulsa, Oklahoma with the chance to make a lot of money. Well, her Mom and I had racked up a pretty hefty sum of bills, as a lot of young couples do, so the idea of being out for a job with a new baby due any day wasn’t very appealing.
So, I left a very pregnant wife and headed for Tulsa where I took an apartment with two other guys that I worked with. Well this wasn’t so bad, I had been married for about four years, already had one child, and I was making lots of money. Heck, it was almost like a vacation. I hadn’t been there but a few weeks when I got home one night very late thinking to myself, Lord don’t let it be tonight, because I’m really tired and I got to get some rest.
Two hours later I got a telephone call form Donna saying that her parents were on the way over to pick her up and she was headed to the hospital. I took the first flight back to Dallas. Melissa was born shortly after I got to the hospital and what a beautiful baby she was, even though she was born without one shred of hair.
As I recall, I got to stay home with Melissa 4 or 5 days before I had to go back to Tulsa. I remember leaving to go back being one the hardest things I ever had to do. I made it back home a couple of times on weekends and finally after four months I was coming home for good. And I remember coming home and being amazed at what a good baby Melissa was. She didn’t cry much, in fact I remember her mom thinking something must be wrong with her. She didn’t fuss much and she didn’t wake us up a 2 or 3 in the morning, unlike her brother who woke us up every two hours when he was a baby, screaming his lungs out cause he thought he had to eat every two hours. Not Melissa though, she pretty much slept all night even at four months old. And I remember thinking this is great. And I remember Donna and I telling everybody what a good baby she was.
As grew Melissa grew older, she still wasn’t much trouble. Unfortunately there were never many girls Melissa’s age that lived on our street for her to play with. But that never seemed to bother her. She would lock herself away in her bedroom with the hordes of Barbie dolls that she had and would spend hours in there talking away, having tea parties, going to the beach or the mall or wherever Barbie goes and she would keep herself occupied for hours. And I remember thinking, wow, girls are going to be a lot easier to raise than boys.
Man was I wrong about that. We had no idea what we were in for later down the road. It started with little problems at school. Apparently Melissa missed having friends early on a lot more than we thought she did. She thought school was a social event, a place where you went to meet new friends and have fun. We spent years just trying to get her to stop talking in class.
And then she became a teenager and she had this attitude and opinions and I thought who authorized this? But I know she went through some rough times for a while and I’m sure there were times when she thought no one could understand what she was going through, especially not her dad.
But as time went by and Melissa got older, she grew into a mature, intelligent, beautiful, sweet and caring young woman. And Melissa I want you to know how very proud I am of you and how much I love you.
You know I guess every father who has a daughter wonders at some point what the guy she chooses to spend the rest of her life with will be like. I think you start wondering about that about the time that they start showing an interest in boys. With Melissa, I didn’t just wonder about it, the thought scared me to death. When she was a teenager, she never brought any guys over to meet me. I think she was scared too.
And then finally she introduced me to Andy. Boy was I relieved. And I knew at that point that some of things that I had been preaching to Melissa for years had paid off and that Melissa was making good choices about her future. Andy, I want to welcome you to our family. And I want you to know, and I want your mom and dad to know, how proud I am to stand here today and have you as my son-in-law. I think you are a fine, talented young man with a bright future ahead of you.
I like to close by reading a message that I found today while looking for wedding card for Melissa and Andy because I think it best describes how I feel today. "
