2013, Canada
I have to go to the bathroom, so I'm going to keep this short. Following [Herb 00:00:15] is always a tough task, but I'll give it my best shot. A few months ago I was talking to Alan, and he's like, "I don't really want you to speak at my own wedding, but you're the only brother I have."
Here we are. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Aaron and I am today's best brother. I decided to enter the best brother sweepstakes instead of the best maiden sweepstakes because there is less competition. Michelle and Alan, it is an honour to stand up here today. I can't be more happy for you two.
So glad we could celebrate this day with so many friends and family from not only around this area, but from around the world. There's people from Quebec, Alberta, the States, there's even someone from Australia here. It's amazing how far some people will travel for a free meal.
Alan, I am honoured to be a part of this small army that you call a wedding party. That's the biggest table I've ever seen. When Alan said today would include a big party, I thought he was talking about the reception. I don't know which group is larger. Alan's groomsmen or Rita #'s pall bearers. Her music will live in my heart forever.
It's especially awesome that we are here today, considering Alan had kidney stones only a few days ago. For a short period time, there Alan was in quite a bit of pain and it looked as if today might not even happen. There was always a part of me, however, that knew the wedding was going to happen. I knew Alan would not let anything get in the way of him marrying Michelle. That and the fact that we are a Dutch family and everything had been paid for.
Let me tell you a little bit about my relationship with Alan. We met in the 80's. Back in a time when spam was simply canned meat. First I think Alan respected me because he would do courteous things for me, including giving me the top bunk. Within a few short years however, our brotherly rivalry intensified and Alan was already bigger than me. If you look at old family photos such as the one at table three, you guys can check it out after, Alan kind of looked like a child body builder and I looked like Janet never fed me. Even to this day, she's always like, "Alan needs his protein, Alan needs his protein." We just starve, I guess.
Because of Alan's physique, I avoided getting into physical confrontations with him. Instead I tried to outsmart him. My favourite tactic was giving him hard objects such as marbles and then standing in front of glass objects such as mirrors, windows, and pictures. I would then insult him, and he being kind of like a large dog not knowing his own strength, would hurl a marble at me. I would duck, the glass would break. I would love every second of it.
As the years went on though, I thought the rivalry was dying down and a possible friendship was beginning. I guess I was mistaken though. I received an email from Alan on my birthday one year. It said, "Happy Birthday, Mom made me send this." I won't make much more fun of Alan, though because (a), we all know he's been through enough pain already this week and (b), let's be honest, making fun of Alan is very hard to do.
That was kind of ... I may be the older brother, but Alan was and is so good at so many things. He has so many good qualities ... oops. Sorry. I was the one usually looking up to him. Because Alan is nearly perfect and doesn't make any mistakes, it really made it hard to come up with material for this speech. I need a better proofreader.
If it wasn't for the kidney stones, I'd be screwed.
There's a lot of qualities that Alan has. Whether it's his maturity, in grade school Alan was busy running a website business, most of his classmates were probably worrying about their voices changing and their hair growing out of weird places.
Whether it's Alan's toughness, the guy just peed out a rock, enough said. Did you keep that rock though? No I know you did. Alan told me yesterday, he actually went into the toilet with his hand and grabbed the stone. Alan usually doesn't wash his hands. As John Davis told me yesterday, I hope he did that time.
We're talking about Alan's qualities here. I got side tracked. Whether it's his compassion, he spends countless hours giving gathers with his Athletes in Action sports ministry, or as they call it, AIA. At first I misheard him though, I thought he said AA. Once he told me he was going to AA for the weekend, I'm like, "Alan I didn't know you drank."
Whether it's Alan's smarts, only Alan would be able to maintain a 90 average and still be cool. Or whether it's his athletic ability, his trophy collection was huge, always bigger than my seventh place ribbon collection.
There was and always is a reason to admire Alan. Many younger brothers learned from their older brothers, with Alan and I, it's the other way around.
But enough about Alan and his Nobel Peace Prizes. Today Alan is a married man. Today is about Alan and the love of his life, his MacBook Pro. In life there are people that procrastinate and leave everything to the last minute, like myself and this speech, and then there's Alan. You can look no further than the planning that went on for today. He actually had his wedding website up and running even before he met Michelle.
As Herb was mentioning, Alan likes to plan.
When we were younger, we called him 'the Plan Man'. He always planned ahead, thought things through, and organised his actions to achieve whatever his goal was at the time. The Plan Man thing started years ago, when Alan was about five or so. Christian, if you remember, we would watch him spend two hours making a sandwich, two seconds eating it. I wouldn't really call it making a sandwich though, it was more like designing a sandwich. He would lay all of the ingredients on the table, carefully place them on his bread. We knew from that point on the Plan Man was destined to be an engineer. I have no doubt that Alan's grand plan including sharing his life with a beautiful wife.
Michelle you look amazing today. Alan, you didn't even shave!
I'll never forget the day Alan got engaged. Partly because he video taped his proposal, he's a bit of a creep, and partly because he called me that day and Alan never calls me. When he calls, you know it's about something important. As soon as I picked up the phone, I could hear his voice. I've never heard Alan sound happier than he ever had before. I always tease him about how he shows off his engineering ring on his pinky finger. I can safely say though today, Alan is much more proud of his new ring, and even more proud to show off his new wife.
Michelle, ever since we met you, we knew you were a keeper. I particularly liked you from the start because you always laughed at my jokes, even though Alan would just shake his head and call me an idiot.
You are beautiful inside and out, kind, compassionate, genuine, smart, caring and most importantly, you make my brother happy in a way that I never could. These last few days have been tough with Alan's health, and Michelle, you have been there for him every step of the way.
Michelle, or should I say Mitch, welcome to the family.
There are many Michelles in this world, but there's only one Mitch. For those of you who don't know, our family calls Michelle, Mitch. Why? I have no idea. I think once I called her that and for some reason it stuck. I think Herb misunderstood me though, because he sometimes calls you Mitchell. Don't worry about that too much, he sometimes calls me Kayla.
I told Allan he should use Sylar. I went to pick up my tux the other day, they’re like, “Last name please”. I’m like, “Guduf”, they’re like, “Huh!” I went to the Bay to pick up a gift from the registry they’re like, “Last name please.” I’m like, “Guduf”, they’re like, “Huh!” These are the struggles you will have to deal with on a daily basis.
I’m fully confident though that you will thrive being Gudufed. Allan and Michelle, I wish you two all the best in your life together. I love you both. Mom made me say that.
So I don’t have a glass but let’s all raise a glass to the most important people here, the bar staff. To Allan and Michelle. Thank you, I’m going to go hug them and then I can go to the bathroom.