Officiant Script for a Brother Officiating His Sister's Wedding

Kenji and Luis wait at the front. The music changes, and Mei walks in with both of their parents.

The music fades. Everyone stays standing.

Please sit down.

Good afternoon. I'm Kenji, Mei's older brother.

It's a little strange to be up here in charge of my little sister. The last time that happened, she was eight, we were at the county fair, and I lost her for twenty minutes. She found me, for the record. She'd walked herself to the lost kids tent and was eating a snow cone. So I'm going to do a better job today, and then I'm going to get out of the way, because none of this is about me.

Mei, Luis, look around for a second. Everyone here has known one of you, or both of you, for a long time. Your old soccer coach is in the third row. Luis, your entire chemistry department drove up in one van. Our parents haven't let go of each other's hands since they got out of the car. All of these people came to watch you make a promise, and they're going to help you keep it.

Mei and Luis met six years ago in the parking garage of the hospital where Mei works. It was February, dark by 5:30, and Luis had been upstairs visiting his uncle. He came down to a car that wouldn't start.

Mei had jumper cables in her trunk. She'd had them for four years and never used them. So she pulled up beside him, popped her hood, and read the instructions off the plastic bag out loud while Luis held his phone up for light. It worked on the first try. Mei still says she knew what she was doing. Luis still says she read the bag.

The next week he came back to the hospital to drop off a thank you card. He told her he'd written it three times before he got it right. I think that's what did it.

The first time Mei brought Luis home for dinner, our dad asked him a long list of questions about engine oil, which is my dad's way of saying hello. Luis didn't know any of the answers. He went home, looked them up, and came back the next Sunday with notes. My dad still has the notes. He'll tell you he doesn't.

Luis teaches high school chemistry. Mei is a respiratory therapist. They're two people who like to understand how things work, and they spent most of their first year together explaining things to each other at dinner, very seriously, while the rest of us tried to change the subject.

I want to tell you about the winter our grandmother got sick, because that's when I understood who Luis is.

Grandma Fumiko lived four hours away. Mei drove up every other weekend that winter, and every other weekend, Luis drove with her. He sat with Grandma while she watched her shows. He fixed the kitchen drawer that had been sticking since the nineties. And one afternoon he asked her to teach him how to make her gyoza.

She didn't measure anything, so he recorded her on his phone. A dozen voice memos of Grandma saying a little more, no, like this, and laughing at him. She passed that spring. Last New Year's, Luis made her gyoza for the whole family, using those voice memos, and they tasted right. My mom had to step away from the table for a minute.

Luis, you didn't have to do any of that. You did it because Mei loved her, and that was enough for you. I've watched you take care of my sister in a hundred small ways since then. You warm up her car before her early shifts. You learned which of her quiet moods mean she wants to talk and which ones mean she doesn't.

Mei, I've watched you too. You've taken care of everybody since you were small. With Luis, I've seen you let someone take care of you back. That's new, and it looks good on you.

Mei and Luis have written their own vows. Luis, you go first.

Luis reads his vows. Then Mei reads hers.

Luis's little cousin, the ring bearer, brings the rings forward.

Mei and Luis picked these out together at a small shop near Mei's first apartment. On the inside, they had the date engraved, the day of the jumper cables.

Luis, put this ring on Mei's finger and repeat after me.

Luis: Mei, I give you this ring as a promise. I'll love you, I'll take care of you, and I'll let you take care of me.

Mei, put this ring on Luis's finger and repeat after me.

Mei: Luis, I give you this ring as a promise. I'll love you, I'll take care of you, and I'll let you take care of me.

Luis, do you take Mei to be your wife, to love her and be honest with her, to stand by her in the hard times and the good ones, for the rest of your life?

Luis: I do.

Mei, do you take Luis to be your husband, to love him and be honest with him, to stand by him in the hard times and the good ones, for the rest of your life?

Mei: I do.

Mei and Luis, you've made your promises in front of your families and your friends. By the power vested in me by [the State of ___], I pronounce you married.

Luis, you can kiss my sister.

They kiss. Kenji steps aside.

Everybody, please stand. Mei and Luis, married.

The music starts, and Mei and Luis walk back up the aisle together.

Kenji, Mei, Luis, and two witnesses sign the license at a table by the lodge doors before the receiving line.