Political Consultant Turned Wedding Speech Writer After Finding Politics Soul Crushing
"I was looking to get out of politics because politics sucks, uh, and badly. It was soul-crushing, and I just, you know, I felt a part of the problem, so I wanted to get out of it. And so, uh, 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."
About this episode
Conan O'Brien interviews Brien, a professional wedding speech and vow writer who pivoted from political consulting to help couples and wedding parties craft memorable speeches. Brien left politics after finding it soul-crushing and feeling complicit in its problems, launching his new business during COVID after validating the concept with wedding industry professionals on Clubhouse. Within 24 hours of creating a basic website, he secured his first client. Brien now conducts hour-long interviews with clients to ghostwrite personalized 3-to-4-minute speeches and vows, drawing on his political speechwriting experience to capture each speaker's authentic voice. The conversation covers the cardinal sins of wedding speeches, most notably excessive length, with Brien citing a record-breaking 50-minute father-of-the-bride speech. He shares horror stories from the wedding industry, including a father of the groom who disclosed visiting a brothel with his son during the ceremony, causing the wedding to collapse in chaos. Brien and O'Brien discuss the importance of balancing humor with sincerity, the awkwardness of reading speeches from phones versus paper, and the challenge of helping clients who don't actually like the person they're toasting. Brien emphasizes that speakers must respect their audience's time and serve the couple rather than showing off, noting that many intelligent professionals simply aren't natural writers or public speakers. The episode touches on comedy techniques, with O'Brien praising Norm Macdonald's strategy of repurposing old jokes as personal anecdotes. Brien's business model includes interview-based writing with no AI involvement beyond transcription, plus delivery coaching to help clients achieve natural cadence rather than word-by-word reading.
Key takeaways
- Brien left his career as a political consultant because he found politics soul-crushing and felt he was part of the problem.
- Professional wedding speech writer Brien launched his business during COVID and secured his first client within 24 hours of creating a website.
- A groom's father disclosed during his wedding toast that he and his son visited a South American brothel and shared a prostitute, causing the ceremony to collapse.
- The longest wedding speech Brien documented was 50 minutes delivered by a father of the bride, which he calls wedding-disrupting behavior.
- Brien conducts hour-long interviews with clients to ghostwrite 3-to-4-minute speeches that capture their authentic voice without using AI.
- Wedding speakers frequently make critical mistakes including excessive length, roasting inappropriately, disclosing past relationships or drug use, and reading from glowing phone screens.
- O'Brien and Brien agree that sincerity matters more than comedy at weddings, though humor helps offset sentimentality when balanced properly.