Weddings are fun, and marriage is crazy

My sister Annalicia got married! She and her now-husband Daniel eloped back in the spring, and we had a big wedding party celebration in September. Here's my sister and her husband wearing trachten.

And in true Whittaker fashion, it was a pretty epic party. There was a bouncy house, a ridiculous amount of Iranian food, and lots and lots of dancing.

Annalicia said I could give a wedding toast if I wanted to. I gave a friend a sort of rough outline of what I was planning on saying, and he said it might be the last time I'm ever asked to give a wedding toast again. But I disagree. In my humble opinion, this is what all wedding toasts should be like.

To Daniel and Annalicia, on their wedding 

There will be a day when you wake up and think, “I married the wrong person.” That day may have actually already happened. But what’s done is done, so here we are, with Christmas lights and Iranian food and a sense of optimism for your future as a couple. 

Admittedly, my seeming cynicism in this toast may be informed by my own recent experiences with marriage. But if I’ve learned anything from the last seven years, it’s that being harshly realistic doesn’t have to destroy your hope for the future. In fact, it makes that hope more beautiful. 

Doubt and pain are where we have choices. A golden retriever doesn’t doubt himself. He just follows his instincts. But we as human beings do experience doubt and fear. But a love that you choose, despite doubt or fear, is far more powerful than a love that simply happens to you. 

And so, with hope and realism, I take my toast from wedding vows penned by the philosopher Alain De Botton, who recognizes the beautiful insanity of something like marriage. After each portion of this toast, I’ll raise my fist, and when I do, I ask that you raise your glasses and give a hearty “hear, hear!” 

May you each accept that you are, in countless ways you don’t yet know, very hard to live with. 

("Hear, hear!")

May you accept not to panic when, some years from now, what you are doing today will seem like the worst decision of your lives. 

("Hear, hear!")

When you are mean to one another, may you remember that at heart, it is because you are hurt, and not because you are fundamentally bad people. 

("Hear, hear!")

May you remember that everyone has very significant things wrong with them. Don’t look around. There probably isn’t anyone better out there, really. Once you get to know them, everyone is impossible. 

("Hear, hear!")

May you be true to one another, not because you are perfect, but because you’ve each decided to be disappointed in each other, and each other alone, rather than foisting your troubled selves on innocent members of the community, who would be deeply annoying, too, once you got to know them. 

("Hear, hear!")

And finally, may you embrace the fact that the entire human experience, marriage included, is messy and wonderful and complex and flawed and fulfilling, and may you find joy in it, imperfections and all, for time and all eternity.

("HEAR, HEAR!")

Congratulations, Daniel and Isha. I'm so happy for you, and so excited for the years to come. I love you.