Bride Speech Given Solo With Dry Humor (Funny, About 3 Minutes)

The speech

Hi. I'm Guinevere, the bride. Jovan is not speaking tonight. He said, and I'm quoting, "You're better at it," which is the first argument he has conceded in four years, and he did it in front of two hundred witnesses, so it counts.

Thank you all for coming. I'm going to do this in a specific order, because my mother has informed me that an unspecific order is how people get left out.

Idony and Rafferty. Mom and Dad. Thank you for this wedding, which you paid for and had opinions about, and for sharing only about a third of the opinions. Dad, thank you for driving the chairs here yourself in a borrowed truck because the rental quote, in your words, "offended you." Mom, thank you for ironing one hundred and forty napkins on Thursday night and then telling me it was no trouble, in the voice that means it was some trouble. You can stop ironing now.

Philippa and Nikolaj. Thank you for Jovan, who calls his mother every Sunday without a reminder and who makes exactly one soup, which he learned from you, Philippa, and has served me roughly sixty times. It's still good. Thank you for the first visit, when I broke the handle off your teapot and Nikolaj said, "Well, now it matches the other one."

Here's the story I tell when people ask why Jovan. Our second date was a trivia night at the community center, a fundraiser for the fire department, on a Tuesday in February. He was terrible. He got one question right all night, the capital of Mongolia, and when the scores came in and we were second to last, Jovan stood up and clapped for the team that won. Then he went over and asked if they were coming back next week.

That's him. He will lose at anything as long as he gets to be in the room. I have tested this at cards, bowling, and mini golf. The results hold. The only contest he has ever cared about winning was me, and that was over in the parking lot that same night, when he walked me to my car and stood there waving until I was out of sight. I know because I checked the mirror four times.

Jovan. You got one question right. It was the one that mattered.

Everybody, glasses up. To Jovan and Guinevere. The capital of Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar, and we'll work out the rest.

Why it works: The humor is dry and lands on the speaker, her parents, or something harmless, and the one story shows the groom losing gracefully, which says more than any adjective.