Maybe You *Can* Choose Your Family

Five years ago this fall, my friends Allan and Lori were married in New Hampshire. They asked my wife and I to deliver a short talk about friendship at the ceremony, and we were more than happy to do so. It was a tandem presentation, so we worked in a transition between the two halves, which you will see.

I came up with the majority of the themes covered and wrote most of the talk, collaborating with my wife on polishing it for brevity and for style (given that it was to be spoken, not read). I always wanted a forum to publish it and thought this blog was the perfect vehicle. So here it is, presented as we said it on our friends' big day (10/13/2003).

Scott (that's me):

Allan and Lori asked us to talk a little bit about friendship, and we couldn’t be happier to represent their circle of friends. It’s a great topic for a wedding day, and we’re honored they thought enough of us to ask.

You know, there’s an old adage my mom would sometimes quote. She’d say, "You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends." It’s one of those simple sayings with an apparent ring of truth; and in fact, I heard it so much over the years, I never thought much about it at all. That is, until Allan and Lori asked us to talk about friendship here today.

And I’ve gotta say, the more I considered friendship and weddings and wedding days, well… it became clearer and clearer to me that the joining of two souls we’re about to witness is the one and only exception to that old saying; because it’s the one time you can choose your family and your friend.

A wedding day stands alone among all the other days in our lives. It’s a day when the very best and deepest of friends, friends who care so profoundly and love so tenderly that they can’t imagine life without each other – this is the one day when those friends make a decision that many of us have made before. The decision to bring your best friend into your family and to make a family with your best friend.

In a few minutes, we’ll witness Allan and Lori, who are quite obviously in love and the very best of friends, choose each other as family. And that’s always a choice worth supporting and an occasion worth celebrating.

And now, here’s my wife Lori, with a two-minute rebuttal. (The chuckling lasted long enough to switch places at the microphone.)

Lori (my wife, not the one getting married):

I have some experience with friendship and weddings. Seven years ago, I married my best friend, Scott. And I can tell you that the “best friend” part is a crucial part of the relationship. Marriage is one of the most intense relationships I’ve ever experienced. And what I’ve found in the past seven years is that our friendship gives us what we need to work through the tough times more easily and to enjoy the good times even more.

It’s kind of like it was with your best childhood friend. You played together, you hung out together, you talked about anything and everything – and the hours just flew by. It was a blast and you never wanted it to end. You even turned down a home-cooked meal to stay out playing.

But somewhere along the line, you got into some kind of fight. You disagreed about what game to play, or whose house to go to, or even who was smarter. And you argued and fought, and you ran home, swearing to yourself that you never wanted to see that person again. Well, we all know the end of that story. Two hours later, you were back hanging out together, laughing and playing and having the time of your life as if nothing ever happened.

Well, a marriage has all the wonderful times, along with its share of disagreements. We all know that rough patches happen. But if you’ve built your marriage on a foundation as strong as that of best friends, and add to that the knowledge that you’re marrying your true love. . . Well, you’ll get through those rough patches and pretty soon you’ll be back to having the time of your life. For the rest of your life.

We are so honored to have Allan and Lori ask us to talk about friendship today. We’ve spent enough time with them to know that they understand its importance. And when they combine that understanding with the love they obviously feel. . .well, they’ve surely built the foundation for that most magical of structures. They’ve built the foundation for transforming a friendship into a family. And we congratulate them.

I hope you enjoy the sentiment as much as we enjoyed giving the speech. It's always strange to me what thoughts were there all the time; thoughts that just needed a suggestion from a friend to bubble to the surface.

I also hope that if you are married it speaks to your relationship with your spouse. Or spouses, you know, if you live in one of those compounds.
:O

- Scott