Al Roker on Daughter Leila’s Wedding: ‘I Was so Happy That Crying Never Even Occurred to Me’
Move over, Steve Martin! There’s a new “Father of the Bride” in town … and he has perfected his technique.
“Leila actually ended up having three weddings,” TODAY cohost Al Roker told Craig Melvin and Carson Daly at their annual Father’s Day event at Swingers Crazy Golf in New York City.
Al’s daughter Leila, 27, and her new husband Sylvain Gricourt got married at the “local magistrate” and then had a Catholic church wedding, both near their home in France. “And then we had a wedding here in New Jersey,” Al explained.
“It’s funny — people kept asking me, ‘How’d you hold it together? Were you crying?’ I think I was so happy that crying never even occurred to me,” he said.
Al credits his wife Deborah Roberts with Leila’s poise and confidence in uprooting her life in America and moving to France. “It’s more her mother having an influence than me,” he said.
Leila met her future husband a year after she moved to Paris to attend the American University of Paris. She now works there as a PR specialist, writer and content creator.
“What was it like just when you looked back down the aisle and saw Leila?” Carson asked.
“When I looked at Leila, I literally flashed back to this moment … there’s a picture of Leila and Deborah outside her preschool and Deborah’s kind of crouched down. Leila’s wearing this little jumper,” Al recalled. “And it was like no time had passed. I saw that same girl.”
Al Roker and Deborah Roberts with daughter Leila at her wedding. (She had 3 ceremonies!) Trisha Jay Photography
Al’s older daughter Courtney married Wesley Laga in 2021. They are parents to Al’s granddaughter Sky, who turns 3 this summer. Sky was supposed to be Leila’s flower girl, but since she was feeling under the weather, her father carried her down the aisle while her mother scattered rose petals.
“This is my second time being a father of the bride,” Al said. “You see both of your daughters as these little girls — and now they’re women, and somebody else is taking care of them.
“I will be willing that, if anything goes wrong, to kill them.”
After laughing with Craig and Carson, Al reflected on how fast the years have gone by.
“It felt like yesterday that I was with her in her third grade class, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and doing a field day,” he said. “And boom, now here she is, married.”
