I wore a suit and a tie, silk ‘loony tune’ boxers and dress shoes and socks. Nothing girly except for my toe nails. ♀ wore a red corset (future HNT post) and a beautiful low cut red dress with sparklies. She looked amazing.

It was a traditional Italian Catholic wedding with all the standing and sitting and chanting and praying and, you know, all that religious stuff. But they did have a choir and that was very cool. I think music is the only really good thing to come from organized religion. Aretha Franklin’s first record was done with a southern baptist fall down on your knees and pray choir and wow, it still gives me chills when I hear it.

Anyway, there was two hours between the end of the service and the beginning of the reception so we decided to go see some pretty women take their clothes off. We were a little over dressed for a Saturday afternoon at a strip club, but what the hell. The corset and the dress ♀ was wearing showed a lot of cleavage and the black lights in the club really picked up the glitter on her dress and other places. She was certainly getting lots of attention.

We were really enjoying ourselves and it wasn’t until I ordered our third drink that she asked about the toast I was to give. I told ♀ that I was just going to wing it and she expressed some concerns about me having too much to drink and turning a ‘toast’ into a ‘roast’. She’d only met the bride a couple of times before and she reminded me again that there’s a special place in hell for making a bride cry on her wedding day.

At the reception I had a few more drinks and told the Bride her dress was on backwards (it opened at the back almost down to her ass), I tweaked the Grooms’ nipple, I blew kisses at the Best Man, I told the Maid of Honour that my wife think she’s hot, I told loud off-colour jokes, winked at various little old ladies, scared the children and was, for the most part annoying. I think lots of people were concerned about giving me a microphone. When I stood up to do my thing, I pulled a long piece of paper out of my pocket with writing on both sides and asked the assembled guests if they wanted it chronologically or alphabetically. The bride blanched, not easy for a woman of colour.

A wedding toast

I met T Aug 8/83 & according to Martha Stewart I am not allowed to tell you where we were, who else was there or what anyone was doing. In fact, according to Martha Stewart I’m just supposed to say "T is a wonderful girl, D is a lucky guy, here’s to the bride." Well Martha Stewart is not here so you know that’s not going to happen.
I can tell you that T was young, attractive, funny, articulate and self confident. She had opinions that were all her own and wasn’t shy about telling them to you. She liked to watch people and figure out what was going on below the surface. She was also not above pushing a few buttons herself just to watch what would happen.
T was not like anybody I’d ever met and it didn’t take long for me to decide that this was the woman who would make my life complete and I set out to win her heart.
I found some old letters while I was preparing for today and T was not exactly discouraging me. In fact I’d say that for awhile at least I was in the running for the title of Mr. Right.
But alas, the day came when she told me that we could only ever be friends. Now this is where you would expect the story to end. T would feel guilty about my bruised delicate male ego and we didn’t live in the same town so it would be easy to avoid each other.
But something unexpected happened; the most amazing friendship not only grew, but flourished. There are not many things that were true when I was 19 that are still true today, but my friendship with T is one of them. When I decided that T was the woman who would make my life complete, I realize today how incomplete it would be without her in it and when I set out to win her heart I ended up giving her a special place in mine.
Life’s journey has many unexpected twists and turns and as it turns out I now have a wonderful Mrs. Right of my own and we have two fantastic sons and with T I have the friendship of a lifetime. I can honestly say that I would not change any of it for anything.
What a cool thing it is that D and I can both look at this beautiful woman here today and both say with all our heart that we are the luckiest guys in the world.
Please join me in a toast to my very special friend…To The Bride.

I got a standing ovation and yep, the bride was in tears. Like I said, I’ve got a knack.

Cheers,

sss