This is the Father of the Bride speech I delivered at my only daughter's wedding:
People hate really long wedding speeches, so I’ll try to keep this short. As the father of any daughter will tell you, it is one of the great love’s of any man’s life, particularly when it’s an only daughter. It differs from other great loves like mother, or wife in many ways: not least because you know your daughter from birth.
Fiona was born on the 23rd of May in the year (redacted). I was woken from my slumber that morning by my wonderful wife who had wonderful news: her water had broken. Less wonderfully, that meant we had to go to the hospital right away. I asked if it could be postponed to let me sleep a bit longer. Apparently, it could not be.
When we got to the hospital, Fiona very kindly postponed her first appearance for several hours which allowed me to catch up on my sleep, much to the chagrin of the nurses who were a lot less reasonable in my view.
It was my first time witnessing child birth, and I kind of dreaded it after witnessing lots of screaming scenes in movies. However, I needn’t have worried: my two favourite ladies made it the most drama free arrival one could imagine, and my main memory is that when I said Fiona was unexpectedly beautiful, Mireille (high on laughing gas) quipped “Future rose of Tralee”.
The following day they’d both decided they’d had enough of hospital, and I carried Fiona under my coat in a sling or whatever you call those things back to our apartment.
So….that’s the first two days covered, on to day 3….maybe this speech won’t be as short as you all hoped.
Fiona was the lowest maintenance baby you could ever imagine….she never cried, raised her voice, or complained. She could amuse herself easily, lying on her back crinkling paper. If you forgot to feed her there might be a little moan after a while, but that was it.
She seemed to enjoy listening to music. She would listen peacefully as I worked at my computer with the radio on. An early favorite was 2 Unlimited’s “No Limits”. As soon as she heard the opening bars, she’d squeak, and extend her little arms, the universal symbol for “Lift me Daddy, it’s dancing time”. For those unfamiliar with the song in question, it has a rather fast driving beat which meant I probably shook her more vigorously than was wise, but as far as we know….no brain damage.
We moved to Paris just before she turned 1, and she decided it was time she started walking. She started to add words later: her first was “baby”, which initially I thought was uncharacteristically self centred until we realised she was referring to me, copying the word her mother used. We were very popular socially in Paris with my coworkers but quickly realised it had nothing to do with us and everything to do with Fiona and her ability to charm visitors. The main highlights of my days in Paris were when it would come time to put her down for the night. She marked the occasion every night by improvising a new song, which followed a formula: lots of nonsense words and pointing at different things in her eyeline, but always ending with the word baby pointing at me. As the year went on, she started to concede we weren’t all going to start using her nonsense words, and replacing them with the actual words for whatever she was pointing at.
For most of our time in Paris, we lived in one of three houses behind a gate in Nanterre. The gate reassured us not to worry too much when Fiona started wandering outside, as her adventurous nature prompted her to do. She got to know the neighbours before we did. When we finally invited the nice English couple who lived next door and they saw Fiona they laughed
“Oh. She’s yours. She comes into our house through the cat flap all the time”
We moved to Germany when she was four. By now she was very verbal in two languages, and she added a third quickly. In fact, I’m pretty sure she was talking German by the time we landed in Germany.
As Fiona grew older, I realised just how much of her personality she’d inherited from me beyond her love of music. Her ferocious competitiveness, her fiery intolerance of fools and her low boredom threshold were all things I could relate to. I also realised she inherited my calmness in a crisis when she fell off a wall and broke her arm. As Mireille ran around screaming in panic at the sight of the bone jutting out of the arm, Fiona was calmness personified
“I think you should probably take me to the hospital, mam”
Her interest in music persisted. One of my happiest memories is bringing her to a Robbie Williams concert. Her arm was still in a cast from the accident. My friend Mark Plati was Robbie’s bandleader at the time, and was able to get us up onto the stage beforehand. Fiona had her heart set on Robbie signing her already well signed cast. As we waited, we caught the attention of support band Ash, who made a fuss of her. Lead singer Tim signed her cast, at which point the drummer offered to do the same and was told in no uncertain terms that would not be necessary or even welcome, as space had to be left for Robbie Williams.
For the most part our musical tastes aligned very nicely, like the time we went Lansdowne Road for a Red Hot Chili Peppers/New order concert where I’m pretty sure she was the youngest person there by several decades. The one time I cringed when she told me who she wanted to see next was Avril Lavigne. I instantly pictured how out of place I’d look in a sea of skater boys and pre pubescent girls but I did what any decent father would do: I delegated that one to her older brother Paddy. Sorry Pad.
When she left home to go to college in Limerick, I got a text from her late evening. She was playing in a poker home game with a bunch of lads and had a question:
“Dad….is it true you’re not allowed to check raise on the river?”
For the non poker players among you, the check raise is the most sneaky and aggressive move in poker, where you lull opponents into a false sense of security by checking to imply you have a weak hand, and then when they bet, you pounce with a raise that can bruise the fragile male ego to the point you start inventing rules to stop it happening again. I assured my ferocious daughter there was no such rule, and I’d never been more proud of her.
Whenever I think of Fiona, a lot of F words come to mind. Feisty, fierce, ferocious, at times fucking terrifying but also unscrupulously fair, and a wonderful friend. In Enda, she has found the perfect foil to her fire, the temperance to her tempest, the gentle stream to her storm. Those who know Enda know his defining characteristics are gentle decency, quiet strength and patient kindness. When I think of them, I picture Enda as a gentle stream in which the feral creature that is our daughter can splash about. I imagine nobody knows just how fiery Fiona can be better than Enda….but if not….well it’s too late now son.
To Fiona and Enda, may you have long and wonderful lives together, and we look forward to getting to know our new in laws the Kelly’s.
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