VIDEO: Alternative to "Traditional" Best Man's Speech?

How does one simultaneously:

• Show off your music skills
• Dis your sibling for not possessing same said skills
• Avoid public speaking
• Send off aforementioned sibling on his wedding day?

This video is touted by the author to be yet another of "the favourite (ed. = best) things ever". Hiperbole aside, it may resonate for wedding guests and participants of a certain age. Funny thing is, the emotionlessness of the Kraftwerkian robot dummy was what they were going for...because, apparently:

We knew the hardest thing would be doing a traditional best man’s speech because we would cry too much.

At least, according to Gawker. Still, it took time, effort and caring to write and create such a production, so i know these guys love their bro. And what better thing to follow or precede or replace a wedding slideshow, than with this six-and-a-half-minute epic?!!  i think i would've taken the speech.

BTW at the time of this blog post, the video had had +350k YouTube views but the band/ensemble still only has 500 or so Facebook fans.

INTERESTING: Is it news that online daters research online?

Increasingly, couples who choose me to perform their wedding ceremony IRL met each other online. This is a fact that most couples are happy to tell me about, but some are reluctant to include the details about their online courtship in the text of their wedding ceremony.  NO problem!

 Following some recent public relations issues, the dating site matchDOTcom released the above infographic, which i found via mashable . Whatever it takes to find your 'one', ladies and gentlemen, do it...just be sure to be honest about your snooping if it comes down to it.

It could be a funny story to tell the kids...or at your wedding. It is your choice, so don't be bullied into or out of leaving out (or keeping) details to make it the wedding YOU want!

READING: Love is a friendship that has caught fire...

Sounds like an adaptation or modern-ish wording and expansion of that ol' passage from Corinthians... 

"Love is a friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad. It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weakness. Love is content with the present. It hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. "

MANY thanks to RaSmi, my coworker, who sent this to me. She'll be reading it at a friend's wedding back home in Wisconsin!

i want to attribute this passage to its rightful author, yet googol has failed me...  Lots of websites state names of different people who wrote this: among them, Caron Farnham and an advice columnist.  For now, i will say the author is unknown.  If you definitively know who wrote this, and can authenticate, PLEASE leave a comment or email me through my website.  Thank you!

VIDEO: The Love Competition

The Love Competition from Brent Hoff on Vimeo - Because "Love is a feeling you have for someone you have feelings about."

Thanks to Jonathan Goldstein of WireTap on CBC for turning me on to Kent and Marilyn Pelz!

INTERESTING: What is love?

It has been a while since we last posted a POST SECRET secret.  In honour of the week after Valentine's Day, here's a lovely postcard for you:

"When you told me your deepest darkest secret, a secret that made you think your (sic) a bad person that's when you looked the most beautiful and I knew I really do love you."

MUSIC: That's All sung by Edie Adams [VIDEO]

lyrics to THAT'S ALL


I can only give you love that lasts forever
And a promise to be near each time you call
And the only heart I own
For you and you alone

That's all
That's all

I can only give you country walks in springtime
And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall
And a love whose burning light
Will warm the winter's night

That's all
That's all

There are those I am sure who have told you
They would give you the world for a toy
All I have are these arms to enfold you
[. From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/michael-buble-lyrics/that_s-all-lyrics.html .]
And a love even time can't destroy

If you're wondering what I'm asking in return, dear
You'll be glad to know that my demands are small
Say it's me that you'll adore
For now and evermore

That's all
That's all

If you're wondering what I'm asking in return, dear
You'll be glad to know that my demands are small
Say it's me that you'll adore
For now and evermore

That's all
That's all

Songwriters: Haymes, Bob; Brandt, Alan E.;
© WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP; MIXED BAG MUSIC INC;

POETRY: "Love" by Roy Croft

LOVE by ROY CROFT

I love you,

Not only for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can’t help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple;

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.

WEDDING: At Falkner Winery in Temecula, CA

CONGRATULATIONS: Samantha and Shaun!

i have the luck and privilege to marry truly incredibly couples.

These two touched me deeply. Not only are they electronic music lovers and DJs/producers (it's a music genre i have a particular passion for), but they are two really cool, sweet, smart people.

i had never cried while performing a ceremony at a wedding, until this day! The bride's brother recited a poem called "Love" by Roy Croft, and they had a sand ceremony to the song "Fix You" by Coldplay. Beautiful.

The ceremony was held in the heart of Temecula wine country at the lovely FALKNER WINERY. Photography was done by the fabulous CHRISTINA D. MCNEILL, excellent DJ service provided by MYDJS.NET, and food was provided by the venue.

READING: Excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit

EXCERPT FROM THE VELVETEEN RABBIT
~ By Margery Williams ~

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

POETRY: I Love You - Paul Eluard

I LOVE YOU by PAUL ÉLUARD

I love you for all the women I haven’t known

I love you for all the times in which I haven’t lived

For the scent of the wide open spaces and the smell of hot bread

For the melting snow and for the first flowers

For the innocent animals which haven’t been frightened by man

I love you to loveI love you for all the women I don’t love

Who reflects me if not you yourself-I see myself so little

Without you I see nothing but an empty space

Between those other times and today

There have been all those deaths that I have crossed on straw

I have not been able to break through the wall of my mirror

I’ve had to learn life word by word

How one forgets

I love you for all the wisdom, which is not mine

For health

I love you against everything which is only illusion

For that immortal heart over which I have no power

You think that you are doubt but you’re just reason

You are the powerful sun that rushes to my head

When I am sure of myself

CONGRATULATIONS: Helen and Steve! (Laguna Beach)

It was an honour to perform a marriage ceremony for these two wonderful people! The bride's sister and groom's mother served as witnessness and wedding party. Although ominous grey clouds loomed inland on this day, the coast was absolutely clear and perfect. The sun shined upon the couple as they exchanged self-composed vows against a beautiful ocean background.

The couple concluded their ceremony with this lovely couplet:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

---from A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare

Laguna Beach is often chosen by couples as the site for their wedding. Of all the beach weddings i have performed, 90% of them have been in Laguna Beach! There are blocks of oceanside and sidewalks for small informal or intimate ceremonies, and you can reserve HEISLER PARK* or the gazebo* next to Las Brisas Restaurant, off of Cliff Drive, or the beach itself, for larger groups.

Please see the Laguna Beach city website for information about these fantastic venues!

* Links are for photos only, thanks to radified.com