Speech by David L

Speech Type: Groom
Speech Creator: David L
Speech Date: sep 2003
My beautiful wife, Mrs Tracy L, Dean & Chloe, Mum & Dad, Alan, Hayley, relatives and dear friends,

First and foremost, I'm sure that Tracy would like to join me in saying thank you to Dean for his kind words. Excellent speech, Dean, you can keep the £5 and we'll allow you to go home tonight in one piece!

Dean actually gave me an important piece of advice just a few months ago in the car. He told me “Dad, you do know that when you get married, you and Tracy will end up having sex for the first time. You can't help it, he said, you end up in the bedroom, you kiss, you end up on the bed and it just happens”!! Now who says school sex education is lacking these days! Obviously, I assured Dean that Tracy and I are just not that kind of couple but thank you anyway Dean for being there with your sound and useful advice in the true and time honoured tradition of a best man!

Now I have to tell you that you are all in the process of witnessing a quite unique event in history – probably the very last time that my wife is going to let me speak on behalf of both of us. From now on, my input will be strictly limited to “Yes, darling, of course you need to buy one of those”!

Seriously though, I was actually quite nervous at the prospect of making a speech so I decided to prepare a few lines. I've snorted them and now I feel fine. Only kidding, Dad!

No, I did actually have a great speech worked out for you – but as I am now a married man, my wife has told me what to say instead!

Now as you all know, we recently had to change our wedding plans. Some of you might have foolishly believed that this was for financial reasons. As if! The truth? Well basically, Bluewater Shopping Centre wouldn't let Tracy have the whole centre to herself, Starbucks, despite Tracy's majority share in the Company, wouldn't stay open and that king of the gourmets, yes the Brick Lane Bagel Bakery, couldn't accommodate the numbers. So, here we are today!

Now on behalf of my wife and I, it gives us great pleasure (well, it often does but we won't go into that one right now in front of the children!), I'd like to express some thanks:

Firstly to all of you for being with us on our very special day.

In particular, I'd like to thank the children for doing such a superb job today and for being so well behaved, Dean for being such a handsome and capable best man, Chloe and Natasha too as our princess bridesmaids – I'm sure you'll all agree they did a magnificent job and look very beautiful today.

As Dean said in his speech, Tracy has become a big part of his & Chloe's lives, something I am very proud of and which means a great deal to me.

Now to Alan, our official and highly unpaid wedding videographer – thank you very much for capturing our special day. You're definitely up for a raise!

A special mention for Steve and Jan for being our witnesses today and to Steve for doubling or should I say tripling up as witness, chauffeur and wedding photographer. You've both been absolute stars and we thank you very much.

Last and by no means least, thank you to my mum and dad. Your lifesaving help in the not too distant past during some very difficult times for me was very much appreciated and has by no means been forgotten. It's also given me great joy and pride to see how much you love Tracy and how you've gone out of your way to welcome her into our family. Very importantly, I'm glad to see my mum looking so good today and so well after all she's been through. Cheers mum!

Now it's customary at this point for a groom to extol the virtues of his new bride. The list of Tracy's wonderful qualities is extremely long. My only problem is that I can't seem to read her handwriting. What does this bit say again, Tracy?!!!

Actually, I've prepared my own list and this one is from the heart.

Tracy, you are my angel, you take my breath away. You are simply the most wonderful person I have ever known. You are devastatingly beautiful, inside and out and today, you look heavenly. I respect you totally, I admire you completely and I trust you with my life. You love me, you understand me, you are utterly selfless, dependable, honest, warm and caring and you are my total best friend and soulmate. The list of your wonderful qualities is truly endless and I could, quite literally, spend hours listing them out. All in all, you are a very, very hard act to follow and I can only hope and pray that we can spend the rest of our days together. You have often told me that your song for me is Carly Simon's “Nobody Does it Better”. I have to tell you today that you're really quite wrong because from putting up wardrobes and everything else in the A-Z of DIY through to your incredible sense of style and the way you take so much pride in everything you do as well as everything else in between, it's you, Tracy, who does it better. In fact, you don't do it better, you do it best. Am I doing alright so far, darling?!!

Tracy and I have a particular favourite song. I'd like to read you the words of this song as they completely encapsulate my feelings for her. The song is by Celine Dion and it's called “Because you loved me”. Here goes..…

For all those times you've stood by me, For all the truth you've made me see
For all the joy you've brought into my life, For all the wrong that you've made right
For every dream you've made come true
For all the love I've found in you
I'll be forever thankful baby
You're the one who's held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who's seen me through, through it all

You've given me wings and made me fly
You've touched my hand I could touch the sky
I'd lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You've stood by me and I've stood tall
I have your love, I have it all
I'm grateful for each day, you give me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I am blessed because I am loved by you
You're always there for me
The tender wind that carries me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you've been the truth
My world is a better place because of you

You've been my strength when I was weak
You've been my voice when I couldn't speak
You've been my eyes when I couldn't see
You've seen the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You give me faith cos you've believed
I'm everything I am
Because you love me.

Thank you.

My whole life has changed in the time I've had the great fortune of knowing Tracy. Those of you who are nearest and dearest to me will know where my life was at just before that time. I was living in my very darkest days. But as they say, the lowest ebb is the turn of the tide and so I met Tracy, a bright light which was to shine on my life and enrich it in a way I could never have imagined or hoped for.

Of course, I was a little concerned about one thing when I first met Tracy. She seemed to have a close affinity with the Palestinians. Well I mean, why else would somebody have all their money with some guy called Nat….of the West Bank – Nat, West Bank? Oh I don't know, something like that!

But talking about the West Bank brings me onto something slightly more serious. Tracy and I met on May the 14th, a date which has a very special place in history and one which holds some very real parallels in fact with the David & Tracy story.

May the 14th – in 1948 to be precise – was the day in history when the first jewish state in 2000 years was proclaimed – the State of Israel. This was a day when, after so many years of struggle, a people came together to be as one. There were no guarantees or promises of a bright future but what there was from that day was hope. That day created hope and a sense of purpose. This is exactly what was created for me on May 14th, 2002.

Much the same as was the case in Israel on that day, Tracy and I came together and again in the same way, we hold hands and we stand together, no matter what and through thick and thin to survive every challenge and threat that may be thrown at us but also of course to enjoy and treasure the joys that life brings. Through good times and bad, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. In Israel, as with Tracy and I, it was the opportunity to build a future together, to strive to create a land of milk and honey. This is the story of Israel. This is the story of David and Tracy.

People say you don't marry someone because you can live with them – you marry them because they're the person you cannot live without. For me, it's even more than that. For me, you marry the person who is the only one you want to spend your entire time with, the person you want to wake up with, go to sleep next to and share your every feeling, thought and experience. For me, that person is my Tracy.

I've married the person who makes me whole, my best friend, my angel, the woman who makes every day special, the woman who makes my life worth living. Darling, I love you with all of my heart and I thank you for marrying me and making me complete, for making me everything I am and for allowing me to be me.

Now I'd like you all to charge your glasses, be upstanding and join me in raising a toast to my beautiful bride, Tracy. Thank you.

One last thing – in making my speech, I'm reminded of my first experience of William Shakespeare. It was a book about a Roman they called Julius Caesar. It said he made long speeches. It then said they killed him. I think that's a good enough reason for me to stop talking and sit down!

Thank you very much.