Today my sister got married. This is the text of the toast that I gave. My vocal inflections altered it slightly, and I added a few extra bits to reference the best man's toast, but this is the content.
Hi, everyone, I’m Emily, the matron of honor and Abigail’s only older sister
(though we have many younger ones). But Abigail never felt like a little sister.
In fact, I remember one time when I was very young, our Uncle Mike said
something about my little sister Abigail and I said, confused, “Abigail’s not my little sister!”,
So then Uncle Mike asked, “Well what is she?” and I said, “I dunno, She’s just my sister!”.
Just my sister. Just the person I’ve fought, cried, laughed, and played with, for all but the
first 18 months of my life.
When I got married, Abigail stood up as my maid of honor with a speech she had written
at 2 AM the night before. By contrast, I wrote this speech the day she and Andrew got engaged.
This story is one of many that demonstrates how different we are. I am a planner, and she is
spontaneous. I'm mostly an indoors girl, while she loves camping and hikes and will sometimes
lay on the grass just because it’s outside. I am expressive and emotional when she is mostly
logical - which made falling in love a bit confusing for her! Abigail had been out with a couple
of different guys, and evaluated the pros and cons of them, very logically. But with Andrew,
she couldn’t do that - she just liked him. Logic went out the window because of how much
she enjoyed spending time with him. Up until Andrew, Abigail had made fun of anything
cute or romantic that Ryan (that’s my husband) or Derek (our brother in law) did.
She wasn’t emotional, she didn’t do cutesy - until Andrew. And boy, was that confusing.
Eventually it was clear that Abigail had fallen for Andrew, hard. And this is when I began
to really like Andrew, because in these moments, Andrew looked out for my sister’s heart.
When I met Andrew, I thought, he’s fine. He was like the guys I worked with, slightly nerdy,
into board games (REALLY into them, like the four hour kinds). He played frisbee, but not
like me where we casually throw it around, but ultimate, with rules and teams and a league.
He takes things seriously - and that is what I like most about Andrew. He considers things
carefully, and as I got to know him better, I saw more and more that this made him a good
partner for Abigail. He cared deeply about what was best for her. In the beginning, when
she was out to meet people, he respected that she might choose someone other than him.
When she did choose to date him, he was careful to make sure that she still spent time
with her other friends and he still spent time with his. When she was anxious to get married,
he prayed about it, and considered what it would mean, and (most notably for me) listened
to my opinions (which I had lots of, even though I wasn’t really entitled to them). Andrew and
I went to lunch once, and out for coffee another time, where I shared what I thought about
marriage, and my sister’s idiosyncrasies, and grilled him to see if he’d thought about these
things. Through these two private chats, I saw Andrew’s true appreciation for Abigail’s
independent spirit, and realized that he did love her and was just not vocalizing those
thoughts. A bit like Mr. Darcy, who says “if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more”.
On that theme, and since Abigail quoted from Little Women in her speech, let me quote from
another set of my favorite literary sisters. This is from the moment right after Elizabeth Bennet
confides in her sister that she is going to marry Fitzwilliam Darcy. Once eldest sister Jane has
gotten over her astonishment, she says, “Now I am quite happy...for you will be as happy as
myself...Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now,
as your husband, there can be only Bingley (Ryan here instead) and yourself more dear to
me.” I ask you all to join me in raising your glasses to my dearest little sister and her
Darcy-like man - as you embark on this crazy, emotional, fantastic adventure called
marriage, we couldn’t be happier for you.
