He was not your father, and you are the one speaking.

The blank page is not about memories. You have plenty. It is about standing: whether you are allowed to grieve him at full volume, in public, in front of people who have known him longer and are related to him by blood.

You are. His children are also allowed to. Neither of those cancels the other, and the speech gets much easier once you stop arguing the case.

Name the arrangement in the first 20 seconds

Do not make the room work it out. If they are still calculating who you are at minute 2, they are not listening to anything about him.

For anyone who does not know me: Dave married my mother when I was 14. I got 26 years of him, which is more than most people get of anyone.

settles standing, age, and length of relationship in 2 sentences. Do this first, every time

That line also does something quieter. It tells his own children that you know exactly what you are and are not claiming, which is the thing they are most sensitive to today.

Pick one word for him and use it all the way through

• his first name“Dave”. Safest, warmest in practice, and it is what you actually called him. It reads as fondness, not distance, as long as you say it often.
• “my stepfather”Accurate and slightly formal. Good if you use it once at the top to establish the fact, and then switch to his name for the rest.
• “my dad”Only if you called him that in life, and only if his own children have heard you do it before. If Saturday is the first time they hear it, they will hear a claim rather than a fact.
• not “my mother’s husband”Technically true and audibly cold. If that is genuinely what he was to you, you can still write a good speech, but say it once and never repeat the phrase.

Whichever you choose, do not alternate. Switching between “Dave” and “Dad” across 4 minutes sounds like you are negotiating with yourself in public.

His own children are in the front row

This is the part every guide misses. If he had children from his first marriage, Saturday is complicated for them in ways that have nothing to do with you.

Three practical moves. Name them, once, out loud. Do not out-grieve them. Hand them one thing that is theirs alone.

Sarah and Tom knew him for their whole lives, and I got the second half. What I can tell you about is who he was in a kitchen in Leeds between 1998 and last March.

concedes the years you did not have and claims the ones you did. Nobody can argue with it

If relations are bad between the two families, keep the speech entirely on him and on your own material. Do not mention the divorce, do not reference the will, and do not perform unity that does not exist.

The one line only you can say

A father is stuck with his children. A stepfather is not, and that is the strongest sentence available to you on Saturday. It costs nothing and it is true.

He did not have to take on a 14-year-old who did not want him there. He was under no obligation whatsoever. He turned up anyway, every week, for 26 years, and he never once mentioned that it was a choice.

the chosen-family line. Use it near the end. It is usually the sentence people repeat at the reception

Say it about him without saying anything about your own father. The comparison is the trap: the moment you rank the two men, the room hears a grievance instead of a tribute.

If your own father is in the room, or was

If he is alive and present, say nothing about him at all. Not a kind word, not a pointed one. Saturday is not the occasion and you will not get the tone right under pressure.

If he died, one clause is allowed: “after my dad died, Dave arrived and did not try to replace him.” That is generous to both men and it is finished in 12 words.

If you resented him for years

Common, and sayable. Most stepchildren start hostile, and the room contains several people who watched it happen. If the resentment never lifted, read a eulogy for a parent who was not good to you instead of this page.

I gave him a hard 3 years at the start. He never held it against me, and he never brought it up again, which I only understood how difficult that was once I had teenagers of my own.

one honest sentence about the beginning, then the turn. Do not itemise what you put him through

Then the ordinary work of any eulogy: 6 concrete things about him and 1 last line. What he did with his hands. What he said too often. One time, which does not have to matter.

End on him. A phrase of his, quoted and left alone. Nothing after it.

• How do you write a eulogy for a stepfather?

  Settle your standing in the first 20 seconds — who you are, when he arrived, how many years you had of him — so the room stops calculating and starts listening. Pick one name for him and use it throughout rather than alternating. Name his own children out loud once, concede the years you did not have, and claim the ones you did. Then do the ordinary work: 6 concrete things about him and 1 last line in his own words.

• Should you call your stepfather ’dad’ in a eulogy?

  Only if you called him that in life and his own children have heard you do it. If Saturday is the first time they hear it, it lands as a claim on their father rather than a fact about your relationship. His first name is warmer in practice than people expect, as long as you use it often. Avoid “my mother’s husband” — it is accurate and it sounds cold from a lectern.

• What do you say about a stepfather who chose to raise you?

  Say exactly that, plainly, near the end: he was under no obligation, he turned up anyway, for however many years, and he never mentioned that it was a choice. That is the one sentence only a stepchild can deliver, and it is usually the line people repeat afterwards. Say it about him without ranking him against your biological father — the comparison turns a tribute into a grievance.

• Do you mention your real father in a eulogy for a stepfather?

  If he is alive and in the room, say nothing about him at all, kind or otherwise. If he died, one clause is enough: after my dad died, he arrived and did not try to replace him. That is generous to both men and it is over in 12 words, which is where it should stay.