It happened...

This past Saturday my best friend of 20 years got married. 

The ceremony was so beautiful and sweet, 

on one of our loved local beaches. 

Following their wedding, we made a trip to Walmart in our full-on wedding getup, played pool, and completely decorated the couple's car,

in the most embarrassing way. 

As I wrote in an earlier post, I had a lot of trouble writing my toast.

I ended up reworking my brainstorming ideas the morning of... around 6 a.m.

It was so hard to stand in front of people and give it, but in the end,

totally worth it.

I figured I'd share it here~

Hello, everyone! Could we have asked for a more perfect day? It’s so lovely we could all come together today to celebrate the marriage of Sam and Nate.

I want to start out by thanking the parents.

Many thanks to Mr. and Mrs. T. I haven’t known Nate for decades, yet, but I can see he is an honorable and decent man, and will take good care of our Samantha.

Mr. and Mrs. H., I know that your own wonderfully happy marriage (they just celebrated their 30^th anniversary this past Tuesday!) has been Samantha’s inspiration and a model for her future life with Nate.

 Thank you for your example and thank you for this beautiful party.

We are grateful to all four fabulous parents for helping to make Nate and Sam the extraordinary people they are today.

Many of you may not know me, my name is Maria and I am Sam’s maid of honor. Samantha and I have known each other for 20 years, since our first day of kindergarten.

It’s a great story, really. I get on the bus, see her, go to sit next to her and talk to her, you know make a new friend. And there’s Sam, pretending to be asleep!

 Well, the bus driver starts yelling at me for bugging Sam, and meanwhile, there Samantha is, eyes shut, big smile on her face and giggling at my expense…

We’ve been best friends ever since.

Through the years we’ve experienced many things together, some good, some bad. We’ve shed our share of tears together…. but we’ve laughed a lot more together. 

And one of my favorite things in the world is to see Sammy smile. And those trademark Magee dimples.

I’ve seen your smile before and after Nate came into your life… and your smile has changed. The way he makes you smile…. It’s the same smile of that little girl I met on the bus, only a little different.  It’s bigger, brighter.

You’re in love.

It’s a strange feeling, happy and poignant to see someone you’ve know for so long truly find her match.

Nate, I know her smile is safe with you.

We’re not children anymore, we know married life has valleys through the high points, but if you have a partner you can share your life with, smile with, I hear it makes all the difference. 

They say that love is not a destination; it’s a voyage.  I’m not wise enough to give any profound pieces of advice on how to navigate that voyage, although we did hear some gems at the shower.  So this Maid of Honor has no advice for you, only a hope.

Hope that you both keep smiling through the years. Hope that you’ll take the time to communicate, to hold hands, to say, “I love you.”

Hope for your own happily ever after. 

So now, let’s make a toast to our newlyweds!

I don’t know Spanish--yet-- so I’ll offer the toast that we give in Italian. 

It goes like this:  Cent’ anni. 

It means ‘a hundred years’ and it’s a wish that they live in happiness for a hundred years.  Shall we practice? Chent ahn!  

Good. Okay. When it’s time I’ll cue you with one, two, three.

Let us all rise and raise a glass!  To the adorable couple!  One, Two, Three: CENT’ANNI!