Take IV

Well I thought it was about time that I took another shot at the wedding speech. I sort of stuck it on the back burner for a while when life started getting in the way but it is still on the to-do list of things that need to be completed. Preferably before the big day. As I was looking for inspiration though and ideas that would befit our momentous event, I started thinking about other productions and the ability of some people to put things far better than I. Like the screen writers whose primary purpose is to find just the right words to say. The fashioning of a moment to move an audience and evoke an emotional response. That is what I would like to be able to do. Those are the things I’d like to be able to say. Maybe I should just borrow...?

“So I have been thinking long and hard about my speech. I have come up with version after version as I try to find the right words to express just what this day has meant to me and the ideal phrases to convey how important this man I have married is in my life. It would seem somehow fitting to say something both eloquent and poetic about what we share together. To speak about what we feel for each other or some of the reasons we have chosen to be wed today. I have looked for inspiration in poetry and prose but I keep circling back to all those so called perfect moments in the movies over the last decade or so. Moments that are perhaps romantic or dramatic or even funny but that all seem to sum up in a small way at least one aspect of what I wanted to talk about here tonight.

From Jerry McGuire’s “You complete me” to Mark Darcy’s “I love you, just as you are”, the simple concept of acceptance really needs no further words. For me, they carry with them the idea that a person can be a home as much as a place may be and that in and of themselves, if you’re lucky enough as I have been to find that person, they are ‘enough’. These words express a love like those which were borrowed by Patch Adams. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep”. A love that is perhaps as difficult to explain as it is simple in nature. But we still try to express if not what this love is for each of us, then why it is all we have.

To paraphrase from The Notebook, “The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds and thats what has been given to me. I am nothing special; just a common person with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and to me, this has always been enough”. It is thoughts such as these that I believe we take into our marriage because we know that together we can be better and stronger than we ever could be apart. As the lines that were given to Susan Sarandon, “We need a witness to our lives. Theres a billion people on the planet. I mean, what does any one life mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it, all the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness’”.

It was said in The Bachelor “Its a wonderful thing, as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face when you’ve gotten old, and still sees what you think you look like”. I think The Boy and I have both been lucky enough to find in each other someone who will want to stay through the good times and the bad. Who will promise to stand as a witness, support, encourage and counsel as the need arises. Neither of us always finds it easy to have surrendered so much of ourselves to be who we are together but it is a commitment that we have both made freely. We have a genuine desire to see as many tomorrows as we can together and to be able to look back on all our yesterdays fondly. There really aren’t words enough to express everything I feel about being married to The Boy but if I might borrow from Robbie Hart with sincere apologies, “Wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad / Help you around when your arthritis is bad / All I wanna so is grow old with you / I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches / build you a fire if the furnace breaks / oh it could be so nice, growin’ old with you / So let me do the dishes in the kitchen sink / Put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink / I wanna grow old with you.”.

So when I was thinking about this speech, I was kind of hoping that it might write itself and I guess in a way it has. There really does not seem much more to say other than to actually thank this man for committing to share his life with me and to thank all of you, our guests for coming to celebrate this event with us. And without further ado I’d like to ask you to raise your glasses to love, to laughter and to happy ever after.”