A Toast

My sister was married on Friday at a beautiful ceremony framed by a river on one side and a magnificent garden on the other.  The sun was shining,  a gentle breeze was blowing and butterflies actually danced around us during the service. It was as if Mother Nature and my sister had conspired to make hers the most glorious day of the summer.

My kids absolutely rose to the occasion and their good behaviour was noted by many. They were rewarded at the reception with copious amounts of soda and basically left to their own devices.  Eric was a good sport with two bum knees and I breathed a sigh of relief when my duties were over at the conclusion of my speech. 

It was my sister Kara who originally had the honour of writing and delivering the toast to our sister Nikki.  Over the course of a week, Kara employed a tactic she has been perfecting which she calls 'a gradual release of responsibility'. Below is the speech I wrote (with some assistance) and shared at the wedding.

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To begin, a toast to the groomsmen – good friends to Nick, and now Nikki, you all look smashing. Cheers. On behalf of Kara and myself, I’d like to take this time to recognize Nikki, our sister, at this momentous time in her life. In the past, our relationships with each other involved stealing clothes, fighting over the phone and generally trying to stay away from each other. Now, we enjoy Sunday dinners and mom and Doug’s, afternoon tea at Langdon Hall, sharing clothes and talking about our favourite reality TV shows.

 

Kara and I both like titles so the title of our speech is On Her Way to Love.  The reason we called it this is because we’re basing our speech on the ideas of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning – the cognitive domain. Might I just remind you that Kara is science teacher so using Bloom’s was an obvious choice for a theme for a toast at a wedding. The revised Bloom’s taxonomy recognizes six domains: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. The categories range from simple to complex and one can only move to the next domain once the previous one has been mastered.

First is remembering or to recall previous information. So today, let’s remember:

-Your wonderful childhood – you were raised in a home where you always knew you were loved, where family was always first and where the sky was the limit

-Your friends, new and old who have been there with you at primary school play dates to university pub crawls and exams to the adventures and fun you have today

-Let us remember all of the rules you broke – a path traditionally blazed by older siblings – this was not, however, the case in our house

-One specific memory is when dad caught you drinking for the first time. When you woke up in the morning he asked, were you drinking last night? Yep. Are you going to do it again? Nope. OK go back to bed. Wow. Tough love.

-Speaking of Dad let us take a moment to remember those who cannot be here today to celebrate this special day with us.

Second is the ability to understand. Hmm. What do you need to understand on your wedding day? That one day maybe your husband will slip on some stairs during a bachelor party, tear both of his MCLs and require 24 hour care?  That would require a lot of understanding. 

Maybe it is understanding you will have to go to work while Nick enjoys his summers off.

Maybe, it is understanding how your past experiences have shaped who you are.  Friendships and hardships, relationships and your times abroad -these have all contributed to you truly knowing who you are at this moment in your life.

Next, is applying.  You were able to apply your life lessons to become the person you wanted to be. That is the person you are today which made it possible for you to find the true love of your life in Nick.  You have learned patience, generosity, kindness and to have a good sense of humour. Several years ago, Nikki once described herself to us as funny and Kara and I just looked at each other like, “What is she talking about?” However, in the past couple of years, in growing even closer to Nikki, we have witnessed her good sense of humour so we will finally give you that.  Most importantly, you have more than ever, the ability to laugh at yourself now. And we all enjoy laughing at you as well.

Nikki has applied her life lessons in other ways as well. She usually makes good decisions; Nick is clear evidence of this. Nikki has also shown the ability to learn from her mistakes, she always lands on her feet and she has no regrets.

The next domain is analyzing. When Nikki met Nick she had to analyze if something so wonderful could really be happening. We all could see that she was head over heels for him but she couldn’t help but use her analytical mind. She had to audit, if you will, her too good to be true boyfriend. 

Evaluating is the next step.  The Bowman’s sized up Nick. The Delic’s sized up Nikki and then all of us in this room took our own time to evaluate the relationship. It didn’t take long for anyone to see how happy these two people made each other. Women are often told to marry a rich man.  Now, teachers are notorious for how much money they make but Nick’s true wealth lies in his character.  Nick is patient. Anyone that marries a Bowman girl must be patient. He is extremely loyal to his family and friends. He is giving of his time whenever it is needed.  Nick is handy (Kara wanted me to say good with hands but I said no, too inappropriate).  But, most importantly, Nick offers Nikki the support and balance she needs to reach the true potential of the person, wife and soon to be mother she was meant to be.  We have truly never seen Nikki so happy. Thank you for bringing such joy to her life.

The final and most complex domain of Blooms is creating. It is here that together, the Nick’s (their trademark name), will use all that they’ve learned to create a future together. That future will hold fulfilling careers (in teaching and accounting…really?),  a beautiful home, a family to fill that home, special memories and a legacy of two amazing people who fell in love and shared a beautiful life together.

And, even if they didn’t have all of these wonderful things going on in their life, they’d still have to get married because Nick knocked my sister up.

Cheers to Nick and Nikki who together have conquered Blooms!