Congratulations Eliza & Harry!

My sister, Eliza, got engaged in April and decided to have her wedding at the end of August. The fastest wedding planning ever. Among the short list of things that had to get done, was designate an officiator. They didn’t want anything religious or traditional in their ceremony, so Eliza and her fiancé, Harry, asked me to marry them. I was honored, flattered, and totally scared shitless. I’d be speaking at an emotional event in front of 100 people. What was I supposed to say? What if I messed up? What if I broke down in tears?

To make it even more challenging, I endured a somewhat painful break up about a month prior to the wedding, so my head was swimming with images from a bad 80’s movie: me at the mic with a beer in hand slurring, “Love. What is love? Love doesn’t last. I’ll tell you what lasts. PAIN! Pain lasts…”

I wrote three drafts for the ceremony. Three! Eliza vetoed the first two. One of them was completely in rhyme:

Many people traveled far to be here today.
Some crossed great oceans, some crossed the bay.
To watch this young couple and their married life start,
Some flew in from Asia. I just took BART.

Note for the future: I totally want MY wedding to be in rhyme.

In the end, I told an anecdote about the day I met Harry, and what that meeting said about both my sister and her chosen one. It was Halloween, and I managed to sneak in my very favorite quote by Anne Lamott about that favorite holiday of mine: “It’s the one day a year when all the pirates and divas, clowns and super heroes can take off their ‘busy adult’ costumes and just be themselves.” Seems like it has nothing to do with marriage, but I made it work.



It was funny and it was touching. After all that worrying about crying in front of everyone, I totally did cry. And it felt great. Harry was crying, Eliza was crying, the whole audience was crying. It was an emotional day, but I powered on through like a champ. And it was awesome. It was one of the more emotional things I’ve ever done. It felt like a huge release, having that ceremony happen, and I’ve been high ever since.



Once the ceremony was over, I got to enjoy the rest of the wedding stress-free, aside from a few much dreaded comments from older family members.

“When is your wedding, Audrey?” And my favorite from my Uncle Jeff, “You’re 32? When we were 32, we had five children already.” Though I can’t tell if it was said with envy or pity.

One thing I do know: it was a beautiful, love-filled wedding and an amazing day. And now that I’ve witnessed my grandma shaking it on the dance floor to “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas, I can die happy.

Grandma dancing to "My Hump" from Audrey on Vimeo.