Last week I attended my Grandfather's wake and funeral and while it was a sad occasion it was nice to see the family and celebrate his life with memories and stories. He was a much loved man and will be sorely missed.
On the weekend I drove to Toronto to attend the wedding of my best friend and his longtime love. Not only attend, but I was the Best Man (a title I lorded over the groomsman to no end) and had some responsibilities which mostly revolved around being a facilitator and an extra pair of hands. I had a great time and was thoroughly exhausted by the time my head hit the pillow for the evening.
Part of the evening involved some short speeches from the parents, Matron of Honour, and myself. I wrote a toast between the ceremony and reception when I had a 30 minute break (but I had been working on it in my head for a week or more) and was pretty confident going in since I didn't know very many people and I wanted to be relaxed so I wouldn't race through it like I did for my parent's 25th anniversary last summer. I was ok until I go the microphone and spoke into it. Holy crap, my voice booming out in the hall freaked me right out. I was so thrown off by the sound of my annoyingly high pitched voice (I really do hate it) being broadcast so loud that I just about broke down and raced through my toast. Fortunately, I had practised the cadence and tempo a few times in the room and I think I managed to get through it ok, at least that is what people tell me.
For the record, I was tempted to do the funny toast but I know my humour doesn't alway transfer well in that type of medium and environment so I went sentimental instead. People at weddings always love the sentiment; its like a drug that way.
One other thing: I was sweating horribly on my forehead during the ceremony. There was a lot of moving around when we switched the ceremony to inside the ballroom because it started to rain just before, and the tuxedo had a vest that proceed to keep all the heat generated in. So even though we were in air conditioning I couldn't cool off fast enough. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to die. Fortunately everyone was looking at the bride and groom and not me. Sigh.
1 comment:
re: speech - You did a great job - we loved it. Very well written, and you sounded just fine. Best yet was Audrey saying that you "upstaged her" with a single line. ;)
re: best man stuff - I sooooo appreciate all the hard work you did there.... my mind was completely filled to bursting trying to keep things in one piece, and you removed much of the burden that otherwise would have been too much. For example, going to find that bellhop cart near the end was great - because until then I had no clue how we'd move stuff around.
Thanks for everything =)
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