23 October 2022, Sydney, Australia
My name is Nik and I'm one from Greg and Selen's friends from the climbing group. And they asked me to write this speech. And when they did, I literally had two thoughts in my head. First was like, this is such a great honour, right? They asked me to speak at their wedding. Holy shit, I must be the best man for this job. Clearly not. Patrick as we saw over there did a fantastic job. And the second thought was, 'maybe they don't have a lot of friends'. But I'm going to stick with the first thought, I was the best man for the job. This is why I'm here.
Crowd: Obviously!
Optimism is after three drinks.
So when I first started writing this speech a few days ago, I searched up a few wedding speeches on YouTube. That's where you get the best content. How do you write a wedding speech? Now, most of the speeches that I've found on YouTube involve making a lot of fun of the bride and the groom, I'll be honest, especially the groom. So I thought to myself, I can do something similar. I'm going to make fun of tehm both, I can do that. I can make fun of Greg. And the way he says 'is nice'. I love how you say it Greg. I think that's one one of your best qualities. The way you say it. And even I can say make fun of Selen, and the way her veganism goes about. She's the first vegan that I've seen who eats meat from time to time.
But I decided not to make fun of them, okay. My speech cannot be that shallow. It has to be much more meaningful. Because it can be my first and only wedding speech ever.
So I decided to make it a bit more meaningful. So here I'm standing in front of you all, to talk about one thing that we are celebrating tonight, which is love. And we are celebrating the love between these two beautiful people. And now when I was searching about love, Rumi is one of the greatest poets in all the church. Are any church people in the house? Yes. You all know about Rumi, right?
Crowd: Yes.
The poet, greatest poet of all time. And Rumi said about love, 'let the beauty of what you love be what you do'. That's pretty powerful. I'm going to just repeat that again to sink it in. 'Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.' So I really hope that you two will spend the love that you have together and spread it around the people that you have around you. So you take that love that you have for each other and you make sure you multiply it and give it to other people. And not just the people existing right now, but the people who are coming... soon into this world.
And so the ups and downs are part of the season of life we go through, no marriage or no relationship is going to be just for better brother. It is not going to be just fun, kisses and laughs. It's going to be tears, sadness, and the feeling of being distant from the other person from time to time, of course.
Crowd: No
Really? Sir, you should start a YouTube channel. But I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of experience in the department of love. So me preaching this and as a person in a relationship that just ended, I didn't think I should be up here preaching about love. But there's one thing that I've noticed when it comes to love. Love is good, but respect is more important.
Because respect, I think respect for me personally is one thing that makes us feel really valued and cared for and wanted. So we have to respect each other's space, and you have to respect each other's space, each other's shortcomings. You can't really go pick around, 'Hey, you did this and you did that.' You have to really put down your own self-interest for the other person. And that is what respect is. Respect then equals love. And I know that you both come from different backgrounds and different faiths and you might have different families that think slightly differently. We all know how much we love the inlaws. Inlaws can be tricky, right. But it all goes down to one united factor that is respect for the other person. And I'm very hopeful, and I can say this with sincerity, that you'll have respect for each other throughout your life.
The next big thing that I wanted to talk is the bun in the oven that we have here today. Milan, who's going to be coming out into this world..
And it is an exciting and an interesting time to be bringing a boy into this world. The other day I was at a train station and this guy just caught me up and this random person and he is like, he's like, 'I don't think people should be having kids anymore'. That was a bold statement to come up to a stranger and just say to stranger. I'm not even having a kid, but yeah, sure. I'm like, 'why?' And he's like, ‘it's not a good place for kids to be in.' And I can see his perspective. It's a bad world out there. But I think it all depends on what we really want to teach our kids. And what you guys will teach Milan. Now, there's many conundrums that you can face, right? Milan can come up to you and he like, 'actually I don't want to open an account in Commonwealth Bank.' 'I want to go to Westpac. What are going to do then?' And what if he comes up to you and say, 'I want to be a bowler ... Greg would say that it's a crime to be a bowler. What if Milan comes up and says, 'I want to be a bowler'. What if Selen, what if he comes up to you and says, 'Hey mum, I don't like baclava. He can! Hee can say ‘it's too sweet’. You never know. Kids will make their own choices. And Greg, what happens if he comes up to you and says, 'Dad I don't think the Hungarian football team will ever have a chance at winning the World Cup.' What would you say back?
He can say a lot of things. He can say, 'Hey, I don't want to work in IT' He can say that. And he's allowed to. You see, kids are allowed to make their own choices. And I think the choices that really matter in life are actually the choice that he will make -- will he have compassion towards the people that we in society look down upon? Will he have kindness in the heart of people that has wronged him? And will he have humility even when he reaches the pinnacle of life?
Now these are the choices that really matter and I know that you will instil these values in him and he will become a great human being, because he has great parents.
[Applause]
Crowd: Also. hell have a cool accent, I'm pretty sure.
He'll have a best accent in the world for sure. Look, I'm just going to conclude , this page is empty so ... , I'm just going to conclude this speech and say that it's an honour to be a part of this celebration, which is this celebration of love that you two have, and the fact that you're bringing a beautiful human being into the world.
So what was the Hungarian word of cheers?
Crowd: Egészségére!
(08:42)
To the bride and the groom