The World's Greatest Wedding Speech

By guest speaker Markus Fleisch

Wow, Patrick and Connie, you guys are getting married. As people mentioned yesterday, this is a very international wedding. Jill and I wanted to say thanks for getting us out of Africa. Incidentally I have two return tickets to Burkina Faso, which happens to be the honeymoon destination of choice for 12 million Burkinabe. And don’t worry about those Fiji tickets, Jill and I will take good care of them.

So I was trying to think about what to say last night—that's right, I’m a procrastinator and I thought I could start pulling out the stories and embarrass you—but I think the slide show did my job for me. As a quick side note, that little kid with the blond afro was not actually me; it was my twin. I had a much more sensible haircut.

So after that I thought maybe I could give you some advice since I’ve been married for three and a half years. Or at least I’m someone who you could call in case you need some advice on how to deal with a difficult situation. But then I started to think about which situations you might call me in. Being married in Africa is really different than being married in America. Say for example, you’re outside sleeping under your mosquito net and you’re giving Connie a back massage when out of the corner of your eye, you see a spider the size of your forearm crawling up the side of the tent. This is a situation where I can help you. Or maybe Connie comes home from a really hard day of work. She’s been trying to teach 100 African children the difference between living things and inanimate objects and they still think the wind is alive. What do you say? How do you comfort her? You can tell her, “I know it's not you. You taught me the wind isn't alive, so it's not your teaching; it's the kids.” So I thought giving advice is out too.

Finally, I thought maybe I could tell you what I think marriage is and how it's different than any relationship you have with friends, family, and even Connie while you guys were dating. We've all heard the life as a roller coaster metaphor. You've got your ups, your downs, loops, and those twisty things that make you really sick. For me, those twisty things have been giardia, E. coli, amoebas, and blasto. They're not as much fun as a roller coaster. So you have a roller coaster and all of your family and friends have roller coasters too. Sometimes your roller coasters might get pretty close and you may go through the same up, the same down, the same loop, or the same corkscrew, but eventually, the roller coasters will always diverge. You'll never be in the same cart as your friends and family. With Connie, it's different. Now that you're married, Connie has done the death-defying stunt of jumping from her cart into your cart. It was amazing, you guys should have been there to see it. For the feminists out there, Patrick, you've jumped into Connie's cart. What this means in real life is that you and Connie have the strongest bond you're going to find in this life. Everything you do affects Connie and everything Connie does affects you. With that in mind, I wish you two the best of luck and hope your marriage is as special, life-changing, and beneficial as mine is. Congratulations.