love letters

The BestMan & Groom.

Dear Em,
Don't tell your Daddy I posted this, because he'd probably kill me. Lucky for us, he doesn't read this blog & the three people who do won't tell him...right?

Precious moment with your God Daddy.

Last weekend your daddy's best friend (who is also your God Daddy) married one of the most amazing women we know. For us, it was a family event. I was a bridesmaid, you were the flower girl, and your daddy was the bestman. Your daddy took the role of the best man very seriously, it was such an honor for him. Your Uncle B & he have been best friends since childhood, & he wanted his big day to be so very special.


The bestman speech is pretty much all he could think of since the moment he was asked to be the bestman, or more accurately (for a while) he thought about how to avoid it. It haunted him. He claims that he's not a writer or a public speaker, that role he gives to me.


Well, after a beautiful ceremony, in the midst of 205 people, this is the speech that your daddy gave for his very best friend...

"Hello Everybody.  I’d like to thank Mr. and Mrs. S and Mr. and Mrs. T for bringing everybody together today and for making such a beautiful ceremony possible.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is also Brian.  I’ve known B since kindergarten and he’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember. B is a great guy… he has a ton of great qualities.  He’s a very loyal friend, he’ll never shy away from sticking up for the people he cares about, he’s got a great sense of humor.  But, for a long time he wasn’t exactly known as the luckiest guy in the world.

In fact, when we were in college, myself and a few of our other friends had a nickname for B… we used to call him 'That Guy,' because if any unfortunate accident, random embarrassing incident or turn of bad luck was going to happen…B was that guy. For example.  It was our sophomore year of college. We had just gotten a foot of snow the night before, so classes were cancelled for the day.  In a typical act of B trying to get in touch with his inner child, he decided to have an impromptu snowball fight with one of our friends.  It was all in good fun and there were no bad intentions. 

But, because it was B, within 2 minutes a campus police car pulled up.  Now, I am convinced that if this was any other person besides B, the police officer would have rolled down his window, asked them to please not throw snowballs and moved along. But, because it was B, the officer got out of his vehicle, completely ignored our other friend who was involved in the snowball fight, and went straight to B and accused him of throwing snowballs at passing cars.  When B denied the accusation, the officer immediately put B in handcuffs and placed him in the back of his police car.  Luckily for B, one of his good traits kicked in, as he can be fairly persuasive when he wants to be, and he finally convinced the officer that he wasn’t trying to cause any harm.  So the officer let him off with a warning.

And then there was the time that B, R and myself went on a camping trip which we had been planning for months. We arrived at the campsite, set up our tents and sat down around the fire to relax.  The first two or three hours went smoothly, but I don’t think anybody was surprised when B went to go find some more firewood and in the process, managed to fall down the only hill in the vicinity, and ended up breaking his foot in the process.  To B’s credit, he did stick it out for the entire weekend while hobbling around on one foot.

There are plenty more stories that would reinforce my point, but for B’s sake I’ll leave it at those two examples.

But now when I look at E and B together, I see how incredibly happy they are. I see how well they compliment each other and it’s obvious that they are perfect for each other. I’m not really a believer in karma, but I can’t help but think that B meeting E was the universe’s way of rewarding B for taking all of the mishaps and unfortunate events in stride.  And I also think that B’s nickname can now be changed from 'That Guy' to 'That Lucky Guy.'

Please join me in raising a glass and toasting to B and E.  Here’s to a long life of love and happiness together."

Seriously, wasn't that so beautiful?! The whole room was laughing. I certainly had tears.

I think your daddy is wrong. I think he IS a writer & he IS an amazing public speaker...at least when great love is the reason behind his words. I also think he's freaking amazing. Don't you?

I love you so,

Mommy