I Feel Good Because I Made a Girl Cry

This past weekend, I was the best man at my friend's wedding. Everything went great. The bride and groom were surprisingly calm up until about an hour before the ceremony. I would have been freaking out long before then, but they were good. I'm not sure if there was a specific event that made the bride nervous, but the groom started feeling it while the photographers were taking pictures of him, his parents, me, and the rest of the groomsmen.

The photographers were trying to move things along quickly. I think the fast pace of moving here and there and constantly rearranging our positions added greatly to his stress. Still, it wasn't anything intolerable. Afterwards, the men in the wedding party went to a private room in the church and joked around with the pastor until it was time to start. That was a nice stress reliever for us all.

As the best man, I had two primary duties to perform. The first responsibility was to carry the bride's ring around and hand it to the groom during the ceremony. This went smoothly, although I was constantly checking my pockets through the day. The second thing I had to do was to give a toast to the newlyweds at the reception. This was nerve-wracking for me.

I generally hate public speaking. Giving a toast as the best man is the type of event that doesn't come up very often, so it felt hard to prepare for. A guy might get one or two chances in his entire life to do something this special for a friend, so I obviously wanted to do as good a job as possible.

I had started thinking of a theme and basic outline a few weeks in advance, and kept adding ideas to that as the wedding day approached. About three days before the wedding, I wrote the thing down. Over the next two days, I refined the rough areas and practiced it quite a bit.

Despite all the preparation, I think I was probably more nervous than either the bride or groom when the time came for me to speak. The actual presentation is a bit of a blur; I can't fully remember if I said everything that I had written down. However, the reaction afterwards was confirmation that I did something right. Several people told me how good it was. The groom said he almost choked up at one point. But I think the biggest compliment came from one of the bride's maids. After I was finished, she told me I made her cry, which was pretty obviously true since she was wiping the tears from her eyes.

That gave me a huge sense of validation. My words were powerful enough not only to stir someone's emotions, but to cause a physical reaction in them as well. I was so happy that I was able to touch someone in that way with my words. It makes me want to write more again.
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necrogenesis

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