Groom Speech at a Two-Groom Wedding (Heartfelt, About 2.5 Minutes)

The speech

Hi, everyone. I'm Nikolaj. Evander asked me to speak for both of us tonight, which is also how we handle the cable company, the landlord, and his aunt. So this is from both of us, and if I get anything wrong he'll correct me in the car.

Thank you for coming. To my parents, Idony and Rafferty, and to Evander's mom, Philippa, thank you for everything this year and for the thirty-odd years before it. To Jovan and Cosima, who stood up with us, thank you.

I want to tell you about a fence.

Three Thanksgivings ago was the first one Evander spent at my parents' place in Ashland. My dad is not a talker. He's a good man, he was fine about Evander, and he had no idea what to say to him, so on the Friday morning he went out to fix the back fence by himself in thirty-degree weather, which is what he does when he doesn't know what to say.

Evander went out after him. He didn't ask. He put on my brother's old work gloves, picked up the other end of the rail, and the two of them replaced six posts in four hours. I watched from the kitchen. By my count they exchanged about twenty words, and eleven of them were "hold it there."

When they came in, my dad took off his gloves, looked at my mother, and said, "He's good with a post-hole digger." In my family that is a speech. It's the longest and warmest thing my father has ever said about anyone I've brought home, and the fence is still standing.

That's Evander. He doesn't wait to be told what someone needs. He goes out and picks up the other end.

Evander. You walked into a cold yard to hold a post for a man who didn't know how to talk to you yet, and you've been doing that for me, one way or another, ever since. I'm going to try to hold up my end.

Everybody, glasses up. To Evander and Nikolaj. And to the fence.

Why it works: The story shows a family welcoming him through work instead of a speech about it, and the line the father says is a detail only a witness could know.