The Wedding Toaster
I got married recently and found this little story among the piles of junk sent to me by wedding organizers around the country. Jeremy, before you read this, I just wanted to say thank you for your absolutely hilarious wedding toast.
His Serene Highness,
The Magnificent D
***
I am a professional wedding toaster. When I make fun of the bride or groom I am referred to as the wedding roaster; and as the wedding rooster when I wake up with the bride or groom. Believe me, the latter happens more often than you think!
My weekend rates, by the way, are steep. My cheapest rates are Thursday evenings. You wouldn't believe the type of people who get married on a Thursday night. They're even worse than the Tuesday night crowd.
In any event, some of you may remember me from the time I used to dress in just my underpants and cowboy boots, carrying a guitar, on Times Square. Yes, I used to be the Naked Cowboy. I have since grown older and my once impressive pecs have now turned into man boobs. Not a pretty sight.
While I cater to both brides and grooms, grooms make up most of my business. Typically, these grooms are total losers, who ask me to pass off as the groom's best man and offer up some witty toast during the reception. Sometimes, grooms like to be perceived as cool dare-devils, so I might speak about how the groom and I spent weeks trecking through the rain forests of Mozambique or some other such exotic place. On other occasions, grooms ask me to speak about our time together in college, boozing and cruising with chicks by our side, yadda, yadda, yadda. As it happens, this last one is a party favorite.
Recently, though, some groom asked me to speak about his blog. He has no blog to speak of, so I just made one up. Perhaps, through me, he wanted the guests to conjure up some image of him as a straight-jacket attorney by day, and a cool, subversive computer novelist by night... Who knows? As I said, my clients are a little weird.
I came up with a really funny speech. I even gave his mock blog a name ("The Witty Musings of the Oracle of Long Island"). I decided I would read and annotate a story that "a certain groom in the room" was supposed to have written. How I howled with laughter at the contents of my toast. Literally, my neighbors came by asking me to calm down. But I just kept on laughing. Boy, was my toast going to be witty!
Too bad nobody else thought so. On the night of the wedding, the crowd turned out to be an international crowd. They could hardly speak English, never mind try to appreciate Long Island wit. One of the grandfathers, having never heard of the word "blog," approached me, threateningly, and asked whether I was accusing his grandson of having run off with another "bloke"... It was really just too bad.
I resolved to keep things simple from then on. In fact, recently, at another wedding, I decided that instead of delivering a toast, I’d sing a song. I put on a big dark wig, wore aviator shades and a weird black cape and, accompanied by a Miss Piggy look-alike puppet, belted out Queen's song, "Somebody to Love." This little number received an uproarious response from the crowd. What a success! What a grand idea!
His Serene Highness,
The Magnificent D
***
I am a professional wedding toaster. When I make fun of the bride or groom I am referred to as the wedding roaster; and as the wedding rooster when I wake up with the bride or groom. Believe me, the latter happens more often than you think!
My weekend rates, by the way, are steep. My cheapest rates are Thursday evenings. You wouldn't believe the type of people who get married on a Thursday night. They're even worse than the Tuesday night crowd.
In any event, some of you may remember me from the time I used to dress in just my underpants and cowboy boots, carrying a guitar, on Times Square. Yes, I used to be the Naked Cowboy. I have since grown older and my once impressive pecs have now turned into man boobs. Not a pretty sight.
While I cater to both brides and grooms, grooms make up most of my business. Typically, these grooms are total losers, who ask me to pass off as the groom's best man and offer up some witty toast during the reception. Sometimes, grooms like to be perceived as cool dare-devils, so I might speak about how the groom and I spent weeks trecking through the rain forests of Mozambique or some other such exotic place. On other occasions, grooms ask me to speak about our time together in college, boozing and cruising with chicks by our side, yadda, yadda, yadda. As it happens, this last one is a party favorite.
Recently, though, some groom asked me to speak about his blog. He has no blog to speak of, so I just made one up. Perhaps, through me, he wanted the guests to conjure up some image of him as a straight-jacket attorney by day, and a cool, subversive computer novelist by night... Who knows? As I said, my clients are a little weird.
I came up with a really funny speech. I even gave his mock blog a name ("The Witty Musings of the Oracle of Long Island"). I decided I would read and annotate a story that "a certain groom in the room" was supposed to have written. How I howled with laughter at the contents of my toast. Literally, my neighbors came by asking me to calm down. But I just kept on laughing. Boy, was my toast going to be witty!
Too bad nobody else thought so. On the night of the wedding, the crowd turned out to be an international crowd. They could hardly speak English, never mind try to appreciate Long Island wit. One of the grandfathers, having never heard of the word "blog," approached me, threateningly, and asked whether I was accusing his grandson of having run off with another "bloke"... It was really just too bad.
I resolved to keep things simple from then on. In fact, recently, at another wedding, I decided that instead of delivering a toast, I’d sing a song. I put on a big dark wig, wore aviator shades and a weird black cape and, accompanied by a Miss Piggy look-alike puppet, belted out Queen's song, "Somebody to Love." This little number received an uproarious response from the crowd. What a success! What a grand idea!
posted by The Magnificent D at 4:24 PM
1 Comments:
His Serene Highness, The Magnificent D:
I stumbled upon your wonderful blog while I was doing research on locating some old army buddies that served with me in the Belgian military until the government did away with conscription in the mid-1990's.
I admit that I am only assuming that you served with disctinction. This is based on the very honorable and very distinguished background from which you hail. I can only imagine that a man of your gentle breeding and noble stature would have done his duty to king and country like the rest of us good Belgians.
Is it possible that we served together? Which unit were you assigned to? I ask because I too am an attorney living in New York. I would love to get together and talk about the old military days over a pint of Grotten Brown at a pub I frequent that shows Belgian football matches.
Jean-Luc Eyskens
Post a Comment
<< Home