Mike and Melanie’s Wedding: Best man speech

I could have either went with a speech or a song.  I chose the latter.

On Friday we headed out to this amazing spot called Golden Lake for Mike and Melanie’s wedding!  It was grand event and I have to say that I loved, loved, LOVED the hotel we stayed at.  We had a balcony room with a view of the lake.  I felt like I was at a resort down south with a view like that!

It was great spending time amongst the Losier and Millette clan.  I have to say when Sunday arrived and I felt like dying, I also realized that this was a bittersweet event for me as I’m not sure when I’ll see the Losier extended clan in my future.  It’s great to get to know a family over the span of three weddings of brothers and sisters!

Here’s my top events at the wedding:

1. Playing guitar for a few hours at this great campfire across the road.  I also got around to ending the set with Free Bird, much to the satisfaction of Aunt Linda who gave me the idea at Danny’s wedding to learn that song.
2. Best man duties include putting my hair gel in Max’s hair.  Let’s just say I botched the job up pretty good as evident in Mike’s mom’s face when she saw his hair.
3. Hanging out with the Millette clan after the wedding.  They are quite the partiers!  I couldn’t keep up and actually was filling up my empty beer can with water from the sink.  The secret is out!  Hey, when you know your kid is waking up at 6am, you have to keep things in check!
4. Speaking of waking up at 6am, the Saturday morning was one of my favourite moments of the weekend.  Sierra woke up, I gave her a bottle and then we headed out for a car ride for a few hours to give Mom a break.  We listened to nearly the entire Forrest Gump soundtrack on some empty highways and the sun coming up.  That’s a moment that’ll stay with me.
5. Having an amazing wife who let me do my best man duties while taking care of Sierra.6.
6. When entering the wedding reception, I was introduced as Mike’s best man AND best friend!  I finally make the cut!  Best friend status, woo!
7. At one point I go to the bar and I say “Hmm…do you have anything on tap?”.  They tell me that it’s upstairs but because I’m the best man, they’ll go out of their way to get me some.  WELL!  I never knew being best man gets some premium status!  I strutted around the dance hall with beer in hand like a king.  I told Mike about it and he said he got the same service because he was a groom!  Nothing wrong with that!  It wasn’t until later on that I noticed a lot of people had the same beer in hand.  Clearly I was NOT receiving premium service!  Ha ha, oh well, it was fun to feel like a king for an hour.
8. It was a freaking beautiful day out on the day of the wedding.  Not hot enough to sweat, not cold enough to freeze.  Perfect day.
9. Seeing Andre and Vero dance up a storm to Gloria Estefan.  See video below.
10. Partaking in the event of the year…the marriage of my friends Mike and Melanie.  Their preparation over the past year paid off and it was a killer wedding.  Hopefully they can get back to normal life now!  Congratulations guys!

Hanging out with the kids.  I think they liked the comics I brought them (alright, alright, they loved Sierra more than me)

Carol snapped our all time favourite picture of us.  A week later, it’s now in the large frame above our fireplace at home!  Thanks Carol!

I rarely (maybe never?) post anything to Facebook as I have this site to update.  So I surprised the hell out of Mike when I said “Well Mike, I’m going to break tradition and post this picture to Facebook.”  I loved his reaction of “WOW, REALLY?”  He was quite blown away with this gift from God.

I loved how the hotel put up this sign!

Hanging out before the wedding.

Grooms troop!

View from our balcony.

Sierra loves being carried around like this.  Mike’s Dad told me he once had Mike on his shoulders like this and completely forgot about a doorway that Mike smashed his face into!

I love how this shot makes it look like Mike is standing for a national anthem.

Best man duty #1: Carry the rings.  Best man duty #2: Carry the back of ring-pop ring.

Hanging out with my cutie!

Best view in the house!

Hanging out before the reception.

Getting a good photo of kids who don’t stand still is kind of futile.

So is trying to get a shot of all of us!  Just isn’t going to happen.

Classic kid photo!  Carol and Danny had a good laugh at this one after seeing it.

Stole this one off of Facebook.  Quite an amazing photo…I wonder how she gets the colour in that shot like that?

 

Move over Mick Jagger.

I love how I have a fake wooden leg in this photo!

Danny making sure Vero had a great time on the dance floor.

The next morning, Vero was walking around the yard and found this little wagon for Sierra to sit in!

Congrats Mike and Melanie!