This hilarious 'making of’ documentary was submitted via submission tool by Vireo Films.
That guy right there. Standing on the precipice of history. That's me. And I'm about to give the best man speech at my best friend, Don's, wedding. A speech that could end up being...
Voice Over: The best speech of all time.
Don and I have been best friends since high school. Even through going to college in separate parts of the country, and living on separate coasts. In fact, Don gave the best man speech at my wedding in 2014. But this particular journey began in 2018, when I got a call from Don.
[Phone call]
Hey, what's up man?
Don: Yo.
What's up.
Don: I just wanted to ask if you would be my best man at my wedding.
Really? Several thoughts are now going through my head. Don is my best friend. Many of my other friends are already married. And the rate of marriage among millennials is steadily declining. These things lead me to one conclusion. This is my only shot to make the greatest best man speech of all time. And to honour my friendship with Don.
Yeah. Whoa, wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I will not let you down, Don.
Don: Okay.
I began by brainstorming everything I wanted to express about Don. After 14 years of friendship, I would have a lot to say. But being that I didn't see Don very much, it took a little more digging than I expected, to paint a picture of Don as I remembered him. Once I got my thoughts together, it was time to write.
Dan: (singing)
So, the writing started a little slow. I realised it was time to put my ego aside, and get some help. There's no shame in using a speech writer. Even the greats do it.
Video: The fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday. But as the day when the world declared it's...
My research led to me to Speechpublic.com, a site that promises the best speech ever. This sounded too good to be true. But then I saw, right on their front page, the guarantee that "Our linguist also proofread each speech." This was exactly what I needed to break me out of writer's block. After all, "A new breathe of ideas can make your speech of the highest quality." I couldn't have said it better myself.
So I asked them for a speech for my friend, Don's wedding. Within 10 business days, I had my speech. And I went to get some feedback from Eric, one of my fellow groomsmen, who also happens to work as an editor at - publishing.
So I'm going to, if it's okay if I read it.
Eric: Sur. Yeah.
Okay. "Good evening, everyone. I would first like to welcome you all on the most blissful and beautiful occasion of Don and Katherine's life."
Eric: Blissful?
Yeah. "I still remember the first time I met Don in school. We were in 7th grade and were in the same class."
Eric: You were not in 7th grade. Don wasn't here in 7th grade.
So, I'm going to be fact checking all this later.
"Katherine, you are one lucky woman, I must say, to have Don as your life partner. I will tell you some of the most memorable, happiest, and hilarious moments I have spent with this guy. Our childhood stories are filled with such moments. So I won't be going in that detail, as it will take tonnes of days. I would now like to request all of you to raise a massive toast to this beautiful couple."
Eric: You can't, what is a massive toast?
It's like a big toast. So give me your thoughts on this speech.
Eric: I feel like you can't use any of this. This all sounds like one giant throat clear. There is, like, no content. If you feel like there are good memories, just like say the good memories. So what is that memory that you're going to share?
Eric had a lot of opinions. But it didn't seem like his expertise was a great fit for wedding speeches. So I booked a session with Alexandra Levine, a writer and wedding speech consultant. If anyone could help me, it would be her.
I want to read you a little excerpt of my first draught. And you can tell me if I'm on the right track here.
Alexandra: Will do.
"Good evening, everyone. I would first like to welcome you all on the most blissful, and beautiful, occasion of Don and Katherine's life. May both of your love be an old classical school, so that it lasts long, and you both make the most of it. I would now like to request all of you to raise a massive toast to this beautiful couple." Is this... How do we feel about this, overall?
Alexandra: Sadly, it's not salvageable. There's nothing specific to you, or your relationship with Don and Katherine, or the relationship with each other, anywhere in the speech. And I think you should scrap the entire thing.
So, in your experience, what makes a good speech?
Alexandra: Having a wedding speech that is not generic. That doesn't sound like a Mad Lib that every other person in the room could have said, or could have written, is something that clearly takes a lot of time. It's something that clearly takes a lot of thoughtfulness. And it's something that clearly takes a lot of attention to detail in your friendship with both the bride an the groom. So, the wedding toast is your time to...
It seemed like writing a great speech would take more introspection than I thought. So I formed a writers room. And recruited several comedy writers to help me write the story.
Thank you guys so much for being here. I'm glad you're going to help me write this. Today, we are going to be writing a wedding speech, a best man speech for my friend, Don.
Hannah Trav: Wait. What?
Yeah. We're writing a best man speech. I need a little bit of help punching up jokes and stuff.
Robert Ecks: You said this was HBO.
Well, so it's actually "Helping a Best man Out", is sort of what we're doing.
Hannah Trav: So, not the television network?
No, no, no. I know. And this is a speech for Don. We're doing a speech for Don.
MIchael Watkins: Who is Don?
Okay. I'm very glad you asked that. None of the writers ever met Don. But if I wanted to follow Alexandra's advice, my writers needed to really know don. So I interviewed his friends and family. And edited together a documentary to give my writers the full Don experience.
New Speaker: [Documentary]
Leslie Lemire: He's fairly calm. He's good at math.
Kevin Sallah: He has a lot of friends. And I see why. Because he gets people.
Like any good documentary, I made sure to include alternate perspectives.
Nate Adams: I would say, having not seen Don for years, and probably never seeing Don again, I do not care for Don.
I could tell everyone was getting a lot out of this deep dive into Don.
Writer: He was talking today about how he won't fart in front of her. Like, if you're willing to do that after that many years of a relationship...
[End Documentary]
And soon, we were ready to start writing.
I'm going to do a little exercise. I'm going to... You tell me what you think of when you think of Don.
Hannah Trav: Cross country.
MIchael Watkins: I put down "grease ball".
Hannah Trav: He's also good at math, apparently. I mean, honest... Is he interesting?
He's like ... fun. It was a little bit of a slow start. But soon, we found our groove. And narratives started to emerge.
Hannah Trav: He's a less hot, gassier version of Katherine.
MIchael Watkins: Yeah.
Hannah Trav: But he doesn't fart in front of her.
MIchael Watkins: He's saving himself for after the wedding.
Hannah Trav: You could say something like, "Katherine is tall, and beautiful, and smart. And Don's blood type is AB-."
Joe Bell: Katherine, would you rather he farted in front of you? Or stopped playing hard [inaudible 00:07:39].
Robert Ecks: I thought you were out of Don's league. But it says here you like hint of lime Tostitos. So I guess you just, in general, have bad taste.
And before long, I got the material I needed. And the speech was finally coming together. Now I just needed to practise.
"And what can we say about Katherine? What can we say? I don't know her!"
Fortunately, I had a captive audience with my wife, who had recently lost her job.
"Favourite snack is hint of lime Tostitos. So we know she's got bad taste."
Are you listening?
Dan's wife: I didn't even know I was supposed to be listening. You've done this ten times already.
Listen, I know that times are tough. But I think that this speech should be perfect. Because if we can't afford a gift, I think this can be the gift.
Dan;s wife: We can afford a gift. What are you talking about? This doesn't... Your speech is the gift?
The journey is the gift.
Dan's wife: What journey? You're giving a best man speech.
I've taken on many trials to do this speech.
Dan's wife: Okay. I'm so happy for you that you are putting so much effort into this. And I think it's going to mean a lot to Don. But I just need to be able to focus right now. Is there somewhere else, maybe, that you could do this?
She was right. If I wanted to take things to the next level, I had to expand my horizons.
MC: Oh my God. Let's give it up for Dan Angelucci.
Thank you guys so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you first of all, to the [Lemiere 00:09:08] family. And thank you to the Grunberg family. This has been a wonderful wedding.
The only way I could truly get a gauge of my speech was with a real live audience. And there were audiences ready, and willing to listen throughout the city.
... Such an incredible hard worker. Even something as trivial as video games, Don will give it his all. He would do 100 super jumps. Two time legend on Hearthstone. Champion's road. And if you know what those are, then you know part of why I find this all so surprising.
I never had a brother. But with Don, I understood what it was like to have to drive someone everywhere because they weren't old enough for a licence. Again, [inaudible 00:09:43] Dante. I'm sorry. There's a lot of jokes at Don's expense. So you might want to just go to the bar. Or go back to the church.
And I know that she likes hint of lime Tostitos. So what we know is that she has bad taste. I hope that you remember this day years from now, and all the people who came here, together, to wish you guys a happy wedding. That's my time, guys. Let's give a toast to the happy couple.
After a successful run, I was ready to talk shop with the veterans.
Would you say it was one of the... If you had to say whether it was one of the great speeches, would you put it up there?
Chris O'Connor: No. You need to cut out the video game stuff. No in-law is going to want to hear about how their son-in-law beats hard levels in video games. You're supposed to fill the group with optimism about the union. I got nothing from you. What hope, what hope is there for these two? How are they going to survive the storm that is life?
What would you do, then?
Chris O'Connor: What would I do?
Yeah.
Chris O'Connor: First thing I would do is, I would throw the whole speech out. I'd get rid of it. I'd toss it. Right? It's a fake. It's a phoney . It's got no heart. No soul. You gotta fight. You gotta go out there, you gotta be honest. You gotta tell the truth. The crowd's going to know the truth. They know Don and Laura.
It's Katherine.
Chris O'Connor: They know them, is what I'm saying. They're going to know the difference between a lie and a truth. You go out there. You be you. You be honest. You be pure. You tell them the truth. And you're going to show them that you're the best man, and not just any man.
I realised it was time to get real. So I decided to toss my speech out, and speak from the heart.
Thank you. It's so wonderful to be here. Thank you very much to the [Lemiere 00:11:25] family. Thank you to the Grunberg family. It's been a wonderful wedding. Let me tell you about the first time that I met Don. Have you guys ever gone too far for a bit? I've got to tell you guys, I'm doing a wedding speech on Saturday. And I've been doing this thing where I've been going around, trying to do a good speech. It's not looking good. It's not looking good. I've been going to stand ups. It's not looking good. It's not playing in the room, that's for sure.
But the thing is, that I don't know... It's like a long distance friendship. So it's like I don't know that much about my friend anymore. You know? Like you go to high school with someone. They go away. And it's like, what am I going to talk about in this speech. It's like, remember that time...
It was clear that this was not the success that I thought it would be. And I couldn't help but wonder, how could I give a great speech about Don and Katherine if I didn't have anything to say? Do I even truly know them? And so, with no confidence in my speech, I went to the wedding. Ready to disappoint my best friend. And when I finally saw Don, I had to come clean.
I worry that my speech is not going to live up to honour our relationship.
Don: Okay.
I appreciate it. That means a lot-
Don: Do think [inaudible 00:12:58] is better?
Just, it means a lot coming from you. You've given me this freedom.
Don: You write down-
But to my surprise, Don didn't mind at all. Then I thought of something that I hadn't before. What if being best man isn't about a speech to adore? What if being best man, perhaps, means a little bit more?
Friend: What's up? How you doing? It's just me and you?
Yep. This is Don's favourite song.
Friend: Actually, it is.
I know.
Dan: In thinking about what I would say in my speech, I remembered something that kept coming up when I was filming my documentary. Don and Katherine had a long distance relationship of their own for two years. Between Chicago and San Francisco. And when I asked people about how they did it, I got a similar answer.
Interviewee: I remember Katherine saying, "It's really, really hard." But I think it didn't matter to them. I don't know.
Kevin Sallah: I didn't know anything about it. Don made a pretty big move to start a long distance relationship.
Leslie Lemire: Oh. I don't understand why she is with him.
I don't know. And really, do we need to know? If they made it this far, there's got to be something there. As we get older, our friendships stretch and change. Some people fade. And some people stay in your life forever. Why? I have no idea. But if Don and I had made it this far, there's got to be something there. And I don't have to understand it. But I should take every opportunity I can to celebrate it. So, here goes.
I remember the first time that I met Katherine. Don had invited Kristen and I to go to Longwood Gardens to meet her. And we were all walking together in the conservatory. And it was Christmas time. And I remember this sweet girl, Katherine, walking arm in arm with Don. And I just remember feeling so surprised.
Even something as trivial as video games. He will go to the hardest challenges. Things like 100 super jumps, champion's road, two time legend at Hearthstone. And if you know what those are, then you understand why I'm so surprised about all of this.
Don is someone who cares deeply about the people in his life. He cares so much, in fact, that he gives Katherine the courtesy of leaving the room when he has to fart. And I'm sure Katherine appreciates it. But I imagine she would prefer he just stop playing Hearthstone on his phone around her.
Many of us in this room have long distance friendships with Don. And it can be hard. You can feel like you're missing a lot of a person's life. But Don and Katherine did a long distance relationship for two years. From San Francisco to Chicago... I almost said Seattle. To Chicago. And they made it work. Despite the difficulty, despite the distance, despite all the times where they could have said, "Why don't we just quit?" And not only did Don not quit. He conquered his crippling fear of flying to frequently fly across the country to see Katherine. And if they can take on air travel. If they can take on long distance. I'm confident that they can take on anything.
And so, after all my work, I finally reached the end of my journey. Did it pay off? Was it the best speech? That's not for me to say. At this point, there's really only one thing I can say.
I would now like to request all of you to make a massive toast to this beautiful couple.
Here is the full speech.