My Wedding Speech

And so... I am married. It is done.

I didn't blog as much as I had planned throughout the whole process -- things got so incredibly busy by the end of it. I have never known anything like it, actually. I was still performing my groom's tasks up until 10 minutes before the service started. But, for those of you who wanted it (Mother/Father/Mother-in-law/Father-in-law), here is a transcript of my wedding speech:



"Well. Thank you very much. I've waited a long time to say this….

My WIFE and I…

…Would like to thank you all for being here today.

I'm going to go through a few thank yous and then I'm going to get into my main speech.

There are so many people we want to thank and as I look around the room and catch certain people's eyes I'm going to want to go off script and thank you personally, so forgive me if I forget you, I am a little bit nervous.

Firstly, I want to thank my new American Family. I have been left utterly astounded at how willingly you have opened yourselves up to having this wedding in the England. Abby and I are not exactly sure how it worked out that we had our main wedding day here, but you have been so up for the adventure of it all that it has left me astonished. You have welcomed me into your family with more grace and favour than I could ever have imagined. Not once have I heard you grumble or be unwilling to come over and have your daughter's marriage take place in a completely different country and, for that, I earnestly want to say from the bottom of my heart: God bless America! Ever since I read To Kill A Mockingbird and watched Calamity Jane when I was about 9 I have had a romance for the deep south of America and now I get a Grandma from North Carolina and a father-in-law from Mississippi.

Next, I want to thank my English Family. This year my parents celebrated their 38th anniversary and they have given me such a wonderful model of marriage that I can only hope to emulate. My three sisters and my twin brother - thank you for putting up with me; I know very well how hard I make it for all of you to like me. 

My ushers for doing such an incredible job today. Rob, Dan, Tom, Paul, Tom and my best man, Ed, thank you for being there with me.

Annie Kirke… How wonderful was Annie today? You led the service so well and I think you are such a wonderful person. To live with such humility and grace when you repeatedly come against people who don't even think that you should do what you do… I think you're amazing.

Pete Hughes. Your talk today was so wonderful. I know, guttingly, that Bee can't be here today, but I want to say that you guys are so special to me. You have invested so much into my life over the last few years and I wouldn't be here without you.

My brother-in-law, Paul and everyone in the band for the music during the service, I thought it sounded absolutely wonderful.

I can see Rick and Henrietta Blyth there. These guys let me stay in their house for a year and a half rent free a couple of years ago while I tried to get this writing career off the ground. Thank you so much for everything you've done for me.

I'd like to thank a couple called Andy and Karen Jones for overseeing the catering service and the waitresses today. You have gone above and beyond these past few weeks.

Finally, I'd liked to thank the caterers, our florist, Hatty, who came over from Shoreditch, and our wedding coordinator, Jessie.

To fully understand the significance of this day and also the impact that Abby has made in my life, it's necessary to understand a little about my story.

Now, I was the kind of kid who would watch a movie and then go straight into the back garden and try to recreate that movie. If it was Indiana Jones or the Goonies, then I get an old piece of rope and that would be my whip and I'd try to build a boat and go on an adventure somewhere. Stories spoke to me clearer than anything else - and they still do - and when I would watch these stories there would always be a romance or a love story right in the centre of them which must have birthed something significant in me because I started to develop this belief that romance was something good and attainable. And then I watched the Princess Bride and knew that I was in trouble, because that fledgling belief exploded and I knew that I wanted nothing other than true love. If there was to be a romantic story within the adventure of my life, then nothing else but a real, deep, true romantic story would suffice. I refused to have anything else.

This developed in a somewhat odd way and I found myself watching quite a few romantic comedies throughout my teens. The desire and belief that a wonderful romantic story was out there for me grew and grew. I didn't know what it looked like; but I knew that I would know it when it came.

The extent of this worldview and belief can be seen through a piece of writing that I worked on a couple of years back. The greats always say write what you know about, so I decided to write a sitcom based around a caricature of me when I was probably about 18 years old. This sitcom would be driven by the 'fictional' lead character's unquenchable and comical thirst for true, passionate and undeniable romance. The authenticity of the writing must have been strong, as it was taken up by BBC3 - and I say that not to blow my own trumpet, but just to say that the outworking of my belief in romance was so comically great that it was almost made into a sitcom at the BBC.

Off the back of this, I decided to, once again, write what I knew, and put pen to paper for a movie script, this time based around a lead character that used to believe in romance but now, due to broken experiences, had lost that faith.

And it was that project that led me out to Los Angeles and to Abby. 

The details of how Abby and I came together are so wonderfully whimsical that I am still coming to terms with them now. I have shared with pretty much every human I've ever come into contact with the intricacies of our story, so I won't repeat them to you now. Except to say this; that I have a picture in my head of what was happening in heaven on the Tuesday of our first date. I have this picture of God up in heaven with a bunch of people and he is gathering them around from far and wide throughout the day as if he's preparing them to watch the television event of the year that evening. He's excitedly telling them, 'you guys have got to come and see this one… come on, you guys over there, come over here, watch what's about to happen...this is a good one.'

Looking back on it now, I am still amazed and, like I said, I'm still coming to terms with what has happened in my life. But from that moment on, it was like I had been reunited with my best and closest friend who I hadn't seen for 29 years.

For me, it feels fitting that we're getting married in the Quantocks. Those of you who know your literature will know that Wordsworth and Coleridge really started the whole romantic period here. And Wordsworth once wrote 'I wondered lonely as a cloud' - and that really sums up my life before I met you, Abby. Even though I had come into a very real relationship with the grand storyteller of them all, I still found myself wondering lonely as a cloud.

I have walked so many of these Somerset roads over the years, Abby. Every road and country lane that all of you will travel through over the next couple of days whilst you're here, I have most likely walked along and prayed to God that He would bring a love into my life. I have hoped, dreamed, longed and prayed for you, Abby, and, quite simply, you surpass every single one of my imaginings. You are the most wonderful, graceful, elegant and hilarious person I have ever met and you are so much more than I could have ever hoped and prayed for. I love you and am so excited to spend the rest of my life with you.

Now most of you know that Abby and I face some interesting times ahead with visa stuff, but I want to say that it was by faith, Carey, that I was brought into your daughter's arms and into your daughter's heart and it is only by faith that we will go on to see greater things than the those that we have experienced over the last year and a half.

So, join me in raising a toast to my beautiful wife Abigail, and the fulfillment of faith."