Funny Best Man Speech for a Cousin (About 3 Minutes)

The speech

Hi, everyone. I'm Pablo, Sol's cousin. Our moms are sisters, which meant that every summer from the time we were six, they drove us out to our grandparents' place outside Las Cruces and left us there until school started.

Our grandfather had one rule: be home when the porch light comes on. Our grandmother had a lot of rules, but that was the one he enforced.

Sol was a businessman from the start. The summer he was seven, he opened a lemonade stand on a dirt road that got maybe four cars a day. Three of them were our grandfather. He bought a cup every time, and Sol raised the price every time. By August a cup of lemonade cost two dollars and a ride into town.

At nine he started a worm farm in a cooler and sold bait to the men who fished at the stock pond. He kept the business records in a notebook labeled "Confidential," and the only entry I could ever read said "Pablo: owes 3 worms."

I did not owe three worms. I would like that on the record at his wedding.

At twelve he decided we would build a raft and cross the stock pond. He drew up plans. He made me sign them. We used six milk crates and a door off the shed. It sank about four feet from shore, and we stood there in water up to our waists while our grandfather watched from the porch with his coffee and never said a word. Then he went inside and came back with two towels and a screwdriver for the hinges.

So that's Sol. Big plans, total confidence, worms on credit.

Then he met Marina. The first summer they were dating, he brought her out to the house, and I happened to be there. I watched my cousin, a man who once negotiated with our grandfather over lemonade, walk her down to the pond and explain the raft in great detail. Marina listened to the whole thing. Then she asked one question: "Why didn't you just walk around?"

Nobody had asked that in twenty years. Not Sol, not me, and not our grandfather, who is still annoyed about the door.

Our grandmother laughed so hard she had to sit down. Then she gave Marina the good chair on the porch, which I have never been offered in my life.

Marina, you are the first person who ever got him to think about the easy way around. The whole family is grateful.

Everybody, glasses up. To Sol and Marina. Be home when the porch light comes on.

Why it works: The jokes all come from one place and one kid's big plans, and the bride's single sensible question pays off twenty years of setup without making anyone the butt of it.