Groom speech examples

"I have been trying to figure out what to say to you in front of all these people for six months. The problem is that the truest things I want to say to you, I want to say to you alone. So I will say the truest public version: you changed what I thought was possible.

I want to thank both our families. Mum and Dad, everything I am came from you. And to her parents, thank you for raising someone who makes me want to be worth it every day.

To the groomsmen, who showed up for every version of this story, and to the bridesmaids, who clearly already knew she was something special long before I figured it out.

And to you. I wrote about a hundred drafts of this. Most of them started with a joke. I kept cutting them because they were not the point. The point is this: I choose you. In front of everyone here, I am choosing you. And I will keep choosing you every day after this one.

Please raise your glasses. To the best decision I ever made on a night I almost stayed home."

"I am not someone who believes in fate. I am a data person. I think things happen because of choices and timing and probability. And then I met her, and I started to question all of that, because there is no rational explanation for someone being exactly right for you.

To both our families: thank you for being here, and thank you for the work that got us to this room. Specifically to her parents, who raised someone with better instincts than anyone I have ever met, and to my own parents, who raised someone who eventually learned to trust his instincts.

My best man will tell you various things tonight about who I was before this relationship. I want to say, for the record, that some of those things are exaggerated. Not all of them. Most of them.

The point is: I met someone who makes me want to be the least exaggerated version of myself. I plan to spend the next however-many years getting there.

To my wife. And to all the probability I apparently ignored."

"I had a whole speech prepared. And then I saw her at the end of the aisle this morning, and I can tell you honestly: I do not remember any of it.

So I am going to say the things that did not leave.

Thank you to both our families. You built the people we became, and we are grateful. To the wedding party, you have been with us through everything. This room would not feel the same without you.

And to you. I want you to know, in front of everyone here, that I see you clearly. I always have. And I am not afraid of any of it, the ordinary days, the hard ones, the long stretch of everything that comes after tonight. Because I am going through it with you.

Please raise your glasses."

"I am going to be honest with you, which is something I have always tried to be: I was not ready for you when we met. I did not know that then. I figured it out somewhere around month three, when I realized I was changing the things about myself that needed changing because I wanted to, not because someone asked me to.

That is what she did without trying. Made me want to be better on my own terms.

To our families, who gave us both what we needed to get to this moment. To our wedding party, who watched this whole thing happen in real time and were kind enough to seem unsurprised.

My brother told me the best thing about being married is that you always have someone in your corner. My dad told me it is having someone who makes you better. My mum told me it is finding someone who sees you clearly and loves you anyway.

I think they are all describing the same person.

To my wife."

"I have three stories ready. I am only going to tell you one of them. The others I am keeping as leverage.

The one I will tell is this. About eighteen months ago, we were stuck in an airport for six hours. Flight cancelled, no explanation, nowhere to sit. And she found us chairs, found food, figured out the rebooking, and had a list of things to do in the city by the time I had found the gate information. I stood there watching her solve a problem I had already given up on and thought: this is the person I want to be delayed with for the rest of my life.

To our families, who made us each other's kind of people. To our wedding party, who have earned this dinner and more.

And to you. I choose you on the easy days and on the cancelled-flight days. Especially those.

Please raise your glasses."

"I want to thank everyone for being here. And then I want to stop thanking people and just say the thing I actually came here to say, which is: I am the luckiest person in this room.

To our families, thank you for everything that brought us here. To our friends who showed up, set things up, traveled far, and did it without being asked: you are the kind of people we hope to deserve.

To you. There is a version of today I imagined for years. Standing here, in front of everyone, saying these words. And in every version I ever imagined, it was you.

Still is.

Please raise your glasses. To my wife."