Maid of Honor Speech for an Older Sister (Funny, About 3.5 Minutes)

The speech

Hi, everyone. I'm Zinnia, Bettina's little sister. She is four years older than me, and for the first twelve years of my life she was also my supervisor. I never applied for the position. She just hired me.

The summer I turned seven, our mom went back to work and left the two of us home with our grandmother, who mostly watched game shows. Bettina was eleven. On the first Monday of June I came downstairs and there was a schedule on the fridge. Typed. Laminated. She had walked to the library and paid a quarter a page to laminate it, and it was four pages long.

7:30, wake up. 7:35, make bed, corners tucked. 7:45, cereal, one bowl. 8:00, teeth, and then in parentheses, "both rows." I was seven. I did not know there were rows.

There was a section for free time, from 2:15 to 2:45, and under it, in smaller letters, "suggested activities." The suggested activities were reading and sorting the recycling.

She graded me. A gold star sticker for a good day, a blue one for "needs improvement." On Fridays she held a meeting at the kitchen table with our grandmother, who had not been consulted about any of this and signed every report anyway.

I did rebel. On the third Thursday of July, I ate two bowls of cereal. She did not yell. That afternoon a fresh page went up on the fridge, and it said 7:45, cereal, one bowl, underlined twice.

Here is the part she doesn't know I know. In August I found the first draft in her desk drawer. At the very bottom of page four, in pencil, she had written a note to herself: "Z is scared of the basement. Do the laundry yourself." And she did, all summer. I thought it was just another rule. It was my sister doing my chores so I would never have to go down those stairs.

That is Bettina. She is bossy, and every rule she makes has somebody inside it she is quietly looking after.

Then she met Rocco. The first time she brought him to our parents' house, she handed him a printed itinerary for the weekend. I watched his face. I was ready to pull him aside and explain. He read the whole thing, nodded, and asked if he could add one line. He took a pen, and at 12:30 on Saturday he wrote, "Bettina eats lunch."

She plans every meal for every person in the house and forgets her own. He had known her four months, and he had already found the line she always leaves off.

Rocco, thank you. In thirty years, you are the only person who has edited her schedule and survived. You're in the binder now. There is no getting out.

Please raise your glasses. To Bettina and Rocco. One bowl each, and both rows.

Why it works: The bossiness is the joke, and then a pencil note on the last page turns it into love without anyone saying so. The groom is introduced through one thing he wrote on her itinerary.