The Wedding Ringer

>> Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/call Conan. Okay, let's get started. >> Hey Brian, welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan.

Hello Brian, how are you?

>> Hey, it's nice, look at you guys, amazing.

>> Look at us, I'm looking even better on Zoom. >> Yeah, it's great, yeah.

“>> Just look at us, isn't that an incredible sight?”

Brian, very nice to meet you, I'm told that you are a wedding vow writer. Is that correct? >> Yes, you are. >> And you don't just write wedding vows, you write any speech that would be a part of a wedding ceremonies. Is that correct?

>> Speaches, the wedding ceremony itself, if you have a friend or a family member doing it, all the written parts of the wedding that have been largely neglected from professional guidance.

>> I mean, first of all, this sounds like a demand that's a job that's much in demand.

But second, how did you create this gig? Where did the idea come from? >> Well, it's actually got a connection to you, slightly, Jason, a guy named Docs Weitser,

“a friend of mine, very close friend of mine, recommended or introduced me to John Macs,”

the writer, the TV writer, and Macs, and I interviewed him during COVID. I like many people started a COVID podcast where I just started interviewing friends that had done something in their lives, and he started talking about his role as a ghost writer, and I had officiated a few weddings and helped friends and family write speeches, because before this I was in politics, I wrote, I was a political consultant.

>> Sure, so you had written speeches before? >> Correct, correct, and so I got the, I was looking to get out of politics because politics sucks, and badly, and it's what I hear, yeah, yeah, it's so crushing, and I just, you know, I felt the part of the problem, so I wanted to get out of it, and so I had this idea, and I started looking around, and there were people that wrote speeches, but there was

nobody that was making a real business out of it, a couple of people that had been doing it at some level or another, but I went on, there was an app called Clubhouse at the time, where all of the wedding people were congregating, because they had nothing to do during COVID, and I went in there, and it's like an audio conference room where you raise your hand, I raised my hand, and I said, hey, what do you guys think about this, and they loved it,

and I made a site that day, and I put some stock photography up, and put an ad out, and I got a client the next day, and I was like, okay, there's something here, so we explored that my wife and I were in politics together and now we're in this together. We went to a conference and started talking to people and my wife Nicole was like you know you've had a lot of cockmania ideas before but this isn't one of them and we figured it out. We figured it out.

We figured it out. We figured it out. We figured it out. We figured it out. We figured it out. We figured it out. You're a real idiot but you accidentally hit something. I'm worried about quantity you know. Yeah. All right. Well Brian, I think about speeches a lot. I watch other people's speeches.

I take them really seriously. Let's discuss our dues and don't. It's my first thing I would say

is and I would just want to know if you agree that the biggest mistake people make is they go on too long. Oh absolutely. I mean what do you think the longest speech so I talk to wedding planners and I ask him this question. What's the worst story you have? What's the long of speech or whatever it is? The record is 50 minutes. Five zero for which speech for like who at the wedding is a father of a this would be a father of the bride's speech. Yeah all of the long ones are fun. No that is.

I mean it really depends on what it is but I think that if you're saying some words

“at a wedding I'm guessing it I mean you should really be thinking about three minutes or four.”

Three to four minutes. Three to four minutes is plenty to do justice. You know I mean you're there to give a gift right you're there to honor the couple both sides right not just one of them not just the person you know you're there no matter what you feel you're there to to make people happy and including them and if you're going even fight look you're in comedy I'm a huge fan of comedy five minutes is hard like fight doing a straight five minutes where you're funny unless you're trained

it's hard and I think people try to do five all day long without being funny or without having any instincts at all and and it just starts to drone and so 20 minutes is wedding disrupting and 40 minutes is like a wedding killer. I mean that's what people are going to talk about.

and here's the thing too is I think when people underestimate the value of sincerity

that if you're talking it's a very important occasion and this is the biggest day of these people's

“lives and you're if you want to be funny great but also remember that that's a big thing that's”

happening and people sometimes don't realize you can just be nice and you can try and talk about the emotional power of the event without just trying to kill. Is that makes sense? Yeah it does I mean sincerity as long as it works towards the mission right I mean I've had clients where they don't like they don't like the person they're talking about. Nice they yeah they have their best friend and they don't like who they're marrying where you know I had one

extreme case where I had a client who was marrying his third wife the kids did not particularly

like the third wife and we had to work around you know it was like hey you have you must have something nice to say about them and they're like well they're good at getting their nails done

“and you know it was stuff like that and so you have to work your way around that and make it fun”

for the audience at the same time so yes sincerity but not but this is not confessional right this is the time to have to talk about the good parts and to make you know to make it entertaining but also make them happy and and so yeah not the sincerity is fun or sorry since it's important but but it has to be fun and it can't be something that's awesome. But also what I see a lot too is people

at weddings that are giving a toast you know a best man speech or you know bridesmaid speech

they think they really have to roast the person and you just have to know what you're doing if you're going to roast the person because that can go horribly wrong and you've probably seen it go horribly wrong. Well I haven't seen it go horribly wrong. What's a horror story you've heard of? The worst horror stories I've heard of involve people disclosing things like past relationships, cocaine use, getting up there and well the worst the hands down the

worst was the was conveyed to me by a luxury wedding photographer and she talked about how at one wedding a very expensive wedding the father of the groom thought it was the right time to disclose that he and the groom went to a brothel in South America. No. And yes. Well it is a bonding experience and that's where he met his right. Especially when you share the prostitute according to

“the story. Wedding over. Wedding over. I'm interested. I'm doing some research. You know what?”

I've read about the etiquette of this. It's fascinating. I really didn't and I've got nowhere to go on it. This is an extreme look this isn't a great story but I'm most of the story. Can you imagine being in a wedding with a groom's father says and then my son and I shared a prostitute? Yeah. But I love those moments. I prefer train wreck moments in moments where you cringe over a smooth wedding. I like it. Way more. I don't think you're the same bad at your wedding.

That is more interesting than meeting a woman, right? But not at a wedding. You know and so it was yeah. I mean most of the stories that are bad. I have one where like the groom's best man had everybody get ready and with their keys and at some point in the in the speech he goes jingle your keys if you've slept with a bride. All the groom's been like James Sergei. Like stuff like that but it's like crowd went like he didn't go crazy. But even with vows

there's a viral one about you know where the bride talks about how much she loves her husband and then the groom gets up and he goes, "I just want to smack that booty." That's all he says. That's all he says. Wait, I said a bad thing or I mean... She's pouring her body off with that. Yeah and then he was supposed to just move the booty. Yeah, he wants to smack that booty. Yeah but that's not okay. But that's sincere. That's a bad thing.

I mean how was her booty? And there were very traditional couple he was waiting to the wedding night to smack that booty. You just want them balanced. You want both of them to say that, right? If one's saying love and the other one's saying booty, this is an imbalance. We've got it. Yes. That's a trap for you. That's a trap for you. That's somebody to look over it, you know. That's what we started vows and speeches. We're doing this thing, you know?

and then you're helping them write it, they participate in the process. Absolutely, you know.

I interview them, I recorded it, so I try and get there. In politics I couldn't write like myself.

“I had to write like the person I was representing. So that's what I'm doing here.”

I'm ghost writing and so I interview them. I'm asking questions like, "Hey, when you guys moved in together, what did you want to throw out that they wouldn't let you?" You know, like, what do they have an odd collection of? His sex robot. Sex robots, yeah. Yeah. Why do you want to throw me out? I have no where to go, please. But that would make a fantastic bow, right? Then now you've got a personalized bow because sometimes

she'll leave town. You'll still need me. She goes to the grocery store and hasn't changed. You make love robotically. Notice she's been cleaning the bathroom. So, you pull all that stuff together, you write about the robot, you throw that in, the crowd loves it, and, you know, it's my wife and I ever renew our bow. I'm doing 20 minutes on a sex robot.

“She'd be worried if you didn't. I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have them?”

The one that higher me? Do you have them? I'd have to figure out how to balance this out. Do you have them read the speech or do they memorise it?

I never remember, I never encourage people to memorise it. You could send your room all day long.

Try memorise something like this. But this is the first time they've read it in front of their friends and family. They need something to reference. I want them to get fluent with it so they can look up and when you listen to somebody read something for the first time, there's a cadence that I'm sure you've heard. It's almost word by word. When somebody's read it enough times out loud, they've got some muscle memory,

and now they can speak sentences. That's really where I want them to get to. But yeah, we do delivery coaching as part of it. There's no AI whatsoever. We, except for the transcribing process when I interview them. That's the only time I ever use AI for this. But the writing itself is all me and them. I'm using as much of their words and stories as possible. Sometimes we'll write something that's specific, specifically new, but it's only

to accentuate the stories that they have. Brian, I have a pet peeve. I see now if I'm at weddings or occasions, people give up and speak. Younger people primarily tend to read off of their phone, and I don't love it. I don't love people. I would rather they have it on a piece of paper, and that makes me probably something like an old man. But there's this something that feels very inauthentic. You see the glowing screen. The minute they take their phone out and go,

I just want to say a few words. It almost gives the impression that they used an app or they just wrote it or they just read people. Some of these people have spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring photographers and videographers. Now you've got a shot that somebody took a flashlight to use for Halloween, like a goolish up lighting. That's one thing. But all of the photographs will look like, "Hey, they're looking at their phone." On stage, but they're looking at their phone.

It looks terrible. It's also hard to track. If you're reading off of it, you'll lose your place

very quickly. People are going to hold on to hold on a second. Let me scroll for a little while. That's

great video. It's very unnatural. There's basic stuff like that that we advise them. But mainly, it's just like, you have people that are just good at math or they're good at something else, and they're not good at science. They're just not the best writers or they're terrified of doing this publicly. Some of it's just not funny. You need a little bit of that humor and I've been watching you from the beginning. I actually was a big fan of not necessarily

“the news back in the day. Of course. When I was, I think two or three, I'm not sure. I know”

how to find very mild humor in what they're saying. Just as an offset to the sentimentality, you can't have the same tone for the same three minutes. That's going to be a very boring song. I just think we all have that situation where we see something go horribly wrong. But mostly, I think the biggest crime in public speaking is when someone just keeps going and going and going and going. It's life. And you think it's ending and then they go, oh, and another thing.

And then you just feel disrespected, like time is precious. And when someone's up there going and going and going and going, you just want to throw them. And there's people that are on a table. I want

for starting this. I'm like you. I can't stand it. You know, and you put us at a table with people

who are supposed to like, right? We're supposed to be talking and laughing and whatever. You're asking us to be quite for four speeches sometimes. Maybe five of theirs, like a step parent. And now, and if they don't stick to the timeline, we're in for like 40 minutes of people talking and not, you know, us not talking. And, you know, for people like me, it's hard. And so yeah, we have to pay credence to that and give them, give them the audience to respect of like, yeah, I'm going to keep

this short. I'm going to make it punchy and make it fun. And if you just hog the mic, you're not doing

“that. Yeah. I also think people should lie more. I think Norm McDonald has discovered the perfect”

formula because he would come on my show and his celebrities are always trying to think of their

funny story. You know, when I went and I got the cake and it fell and that's when Harry Hamlin said, you know, like, well, okay, great. I don't want to hear that story. No, that's not cool. It's a really good story. But, but Norm McDonald would come on the show and just tell old salesman jokes from like the 1920s that you could probably buy in the Sears catalog. And it was insane. But he would commit to them. And I would think, yeah, people should just say, you know, I just want to tell

it funny story about the bride. And then it's it's just the plot to some great comedy movie from the 1950s. But yeah, it's retooled the mouth joke. Yeah. Like a thousand, I mean, a thousand times that joke. I mean, that you're telling me he didn't learn that from a cabby. I mean, that, that, you know, well, he didn't know he's going to, you know, he wasn't doing that. He wasn't supposed

to do that segment. He was supposed to do one segment. And on the fly said, let's do a second segment

Norm and he was like, what? And then I, he just had to make it up. And he just, I mean, I think he had maybe told that before, but he just went for it. And it's become the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, this is, I'm glad you're out there. This is going to help people immensely. And mostly you're helping their audience. Because I want more and more people who are giving toasts at a wedding to get some advice before they do it. Because if I'm going to be sitting there,

I don't want to get violent. We ask people to do these, like, people, uh, ask your friends of family to be efficient all the time. And it's, it's one of the bigger

“trends in in weddings where you don't hire an efficient, you hire a friend. You ask if you have to”

do it. Yeah. But they don't know how to do it. Nope. Right. They don't know how to write an 8 to 10 minute narrative of a love story and make it beautiful and funny and keep it going. They don't have no guidance. So art, our whole job here is just to help people along through this process. And and make it fun and make it fun for everybody including the audience. Well, I'm glad you're doing it. It's been lovely chatting to you, Brian. But I want to make sure this doesn't go on too long.

And I just got out on a big last. But Brian, take care. Thank you so much. And it's been a real pleasure. I love you guys and I love you. We drove across country listening to you. Thank you so to that. And you're welcome. I'm a national sweet champion. I feel like I had to mention that at some point in this and I've been married. Yeah. Have you officially do any? Uh, yes, I have. So I have. So I want it. Oh, for you. How do you do? I have. Oh, I crushed it.

“The couple immediately broke up. Because of my speech. How did I do?”

You stuck in half the shit for one of your friends. Yeah, I was really great. I did a great job. Of course. All right. Well, Brian, go for it and continue your good works. Thank you, Gunn. And thank you all. Thanks, everybody. Take care. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian, and Matt Gorley, produced by me, Matt Gorley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Lea, incidental music by Jimmy Vivina. Take it away, Jimmy.

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