So my blog post from last week highlighting the couple who took photos of the wife every day during her pregnancy and stitched them together into a beautiful video was viewed by…well…a LOT of people: 2,680,800 of them to be exact. That doubled the past record number of times any one item has been viewed on LifeSiteNews. The blogpost was also shared 384,000 times.
Not bad.
It turns out that the husband in that video happens to be Tom Fletcher of the English pop band McFly. I didn't know that at the time (not that it would have meant much to me anyway…I don't know if I've ever heard a McFly song in my life). All I knew was that it was a really sweet video that authentically highlighted the awesomeness of bringing a new human being into the world: a theme that resonates with me, given that my wife and I just recently welcomed our fourth child into the world.
But it turns out that Fletcher doesn't just have a history of making viral videos, he also has a history of giving proper (and creative) tribute to the truly valuable things in life. Case in point: Fletcher's wedding “speech.”
What's amazing about this wedding speech isn't that Fletcher happened to have enough money to hire a children's choir to come in and sing for his wife. That was a nice touch, but it's not what made the speech. What made it is the fact that Fletcher cared enough about his wedding, and his wife, to spend the time and energy writing a fourteen-minute song that is full of authentic sentiments expressing heartfelt gratitude for the blessings he has received in his life, and for his lovely bride.
Being a world-famous popstar might be awesome. But, to me, what Fletcher has affirmed in both the video about the birth of his child, and his wedding speech, is that there are far more important things than this kind of worldly success: simple things like loving another human being…like marriage, and having a family. These things are beautiful, magnificient, mysterious, sublime. They're the things that ultimately matter. They're what makes life worth living. Everything else is just gravy.
I don't know anything else about Fletcher, but in these two videos I think he's taught the world some important messages. So thanks for that Tom.