Father of the Groom

My greatest writing challenge.

At first I didn’t think it was even a thing.

I haven’t been to that many weddings in my life, and I never realized that the father of the groom giving a speech had become de rigueur. So when Jack asked me to stand up and talk at his wedding this weekend, I tried to talk him out of it, saying it wasn’t appropriate, no one needed to hear from me. He snorted and gave me that same incredulous look he’s delivered many times when I was acting weird. “Da-ad.” I sighed and said I’d give it a try.

I spent some time on YouTube looking at videos of tuxedoed men toasting their sons. They seem to largely fall into two categories:

One: Speeches given by grown men weeping: “I remember when we used to throw a ball in the yard, and when he scored his first touchdown in Pee-wee football, and now he’s this big wonderful man, and I am so gosh-darned proud of him. (Sniff, choke, hug).”

Alternatively: Men humiliating their sons with anecdotes from his youth that he’d just as soon forget, let alone have shared with all of his friends: “I’ll always remember when young Timmy got explosive diarrhea in Mexico,” or “I always remember Timmy’s first girlfriend, she had buck teeth and a lisp,” that sort of thing.

Men are often not great at expressing emotion, particularly to their male progeny. I can’t say I don’t understand that because I do. Dads are bound to be awkward and embarrassing, and handing them a mic on one of the most important days of your life could be a mistake.

But for some reason my son trusts me. Though he did text me last week to say I must keep it under 5 minutes. He knows me pretty well.

I’ve done a fair amount of public speaking, and I’ve been on camera talking to the multitudes many times, so I dont suffer from stage fright. But figuring out what I was going to say this weekend at Jack’s wedding has been a major writing challenge.

In fact, I’ll be delivering the 12th draft of my speech on Saturday night.

My 32-year relationship with Jack has been difficult to encapsulate in a couple of hundred words.

It was complicated from the beginning. I never thought I could actually be much of a father, not having had particularly great examples of fatherhood to learn from. So I spent Patti’s pregnancy reading baby manuals and watching Spencer Tracy movies.

Eventually I learned that it’s a skill you just have to learn on the job.

When Patti was paralyzed, Jack was just 9 months old. As I watched him take his first steps in her hospital room, I thought, “How is he ever going to overcome her disability? Will it become his handicap?”

Patti made sure that was never the case. Jack grew up confident, cared for, and with every opportunity. But when you have a mom in a wheelchair, you’re always a little different. I like to think that was an advantage.

Jack was an all-American kid in a way that I certainly never was. He could throw a baseball, catch a football, manage himself on a soccer field, and catch a trout. He performed in the theatre and in a band. His school papers and his poetry flabbergasted me. — he was a much better writer than I was at his age.

I don’t know if it was my overbearing influence, but he went to the “Fame” High School with Timothée Chalamet and Madonna’s daughter, then on to a painting major at RISD.

But then his mom died when he was in 10th grade. It rocked his world, but he remained the same Jack Tea Gregory.

I don’t plan to talk about any of that in my speech.

I figure most people in the room already know most of those plot points, and the bride and groom certainly do. I decided from the get-go that my job here isn’t to be Jack’s biographer.

And I also want to avoid talking too much about myself. God knows I do that for a living already.

To keep things short and focused, I decided to just talk about what I see in their relationship.

They’ve been together for 9 years, and they’re bound by much more than romance. This past decade has been a tough time to be two young people starting their lives, but Jack and Amanda have weathered it and flourished because of their bond. They have each other’s backs. They are resilient and strong and incredibly creative. They’ve applied that creativity to solve enormous challenges and reinvent themselves when life forced them to adapt.

It turns out going to art school was just the training Jack needed to make it in the 2020s.

I’m not going to share the actual speech I wrote here—if you want to hear it, you’ll have to be in Los Angeles tomorrow night with a few glasses of champagne in you—so suffice it to say, I’ve learned a lot writing it. It’s forced me to consider the hardest part of being a parent: hoping you’ve given your children the tools they need to survive in the harsh real world. Can they adapt and flourish, even if you’re not there to show them the way?

This is the first time I’ve been the father of the groom. I pray my job is one and done.

Your pal,

Danny