The Speech

Richard and Elizabeth are finally married (actually they have been for 4 days now, I just didn’t write this post until now). It was quite a day of fun, laughter, joy, and even a few tears. Heck, there was even a bear.

One of my greatest honors of the night was to get to give the best man speech. I had to write it all down because if I didn’t, I was sure to think about what I was saying, and you probably would have witnessed me stumble over more words than I did with the paper, as well as probably break down into tears at the end (haha, me cry… I’m not emotional at all….). In any case, I document the speech here for the internet to put into the ages.

Greetings Everyone,

My Name is Justin, and I’m Richards “Twin Brother From Another Mother”. I call ourselves that not because of the uncanny resemblance to one another, but rather because of the close friendship we’ve shared for the last 16.5 years. Richard and I have known each other since 3rd grade back in the days of original Gameboy and windows 95. I’m not exactly sure when and where we met, but for as long as I’ve known Richard, I’ve seen us in 3 roles with one another.

First, there has been a fierce competition between us. A friendly rivalry that always brought out the best in our individual abilities. Looking back, one of my first memories with Richard involved a game of lighting in the gyms at Middleton. Richard of course would always win, especially when I let him.

The second role was as a strong teammate and ally. Whether it was a baseball team that couldn’t win a game that we helped turn around at the end of the year to become champs, a science Olympiad competition we hadn’t prepped for that we ended up taking gold in, or a dungeon deep in the depths of Ultima Online with a few dragons that were sure to kill us… We had each other’s backs, and anything standing in our way was sure to be vanquished.

Third was as a close friend and confidant. In fact, it was at one of our friendly Applebee’s lunches where I first heard about Elizabeth… This amazing girl from Bailey hall that Richard was desperately falling for. It wasn’t long after that, that I found out who this amazing Woman was, and quickly realized that it was only a matter of time before I would be replaced :-). And sure enough, 6 and a half LONNNNG years later, you guys finally get married… And I am proud to turn over the reins and my advice to you Elizabeth…

In fact,  I’ve secretly been working on a list of advice for you, Elizabeth to explain the finer details of how exactly to beat Richard at chess, magic the gathering, and just for kicks and giggles, Pokemon… I’m pretty sure the same strategies can be applied to get him to pay the bills, take out the trash, and make dinner… But I’ll leave you to try them.

So today, I lift my glass to you, I wish Elizabeth and Richard that for the rest of your lives, you have the same if not even better thing than I’ve had with Richard the last 16 years. I wish that the two of you would bring out the best in each other, vanquish all opponents, whether real or imaginary, and above all else, the happiness and love that comes with being with your closest friend and confidant every day. To the Bride and Groom!

And for the sake of it… You can also see how far I deviated/ad libbed/etc.

The rest of the media from Richard’s wedding can be found here.