Rehearsal Dinner Toast From the Bride's Best Friend (Short, 2 Min)

The speech

Hi, everyone. I'm Tova. Zuzana and I have been friends since seventh grade, and I am not giving a speech tomorrow, which is why I get to tell this one tonight. At the reception there will be a grandmother in the front row. This room is just us.

Three years ago, Ottavio was flying home from a work trip, and his flight got in at 11:40 at night. Zuzana went to pick him up. They had been dating about two months. She got there early, saw a vending machine by baggage claim, and decided he would want the peanut butter cups he likes. She put in her dollar. The peanut butter cups got stuck on the coil, hanging right over the edge.

So she reached up through the flap. Up to the elbow. And then she couldn't get her arm back out.

She called me from inside the vending machine, more or less. I could hear the baggage carousel. She said, "Do not laugh," and I did, for a long time. A maintenance man came over with a screwdriver and a lot of opinions.

That's when Ottavio walked out of arrivals. Two months in. His new girlfriend, attached to a snack machine. He didn't laugh, which I still hold against him a little. He set down his bag, sat on the floor next to her, and held her free hand until the panel came off. It took twenty minutes. Then he got up and bought the peanut butter cups with exact change.

She told me the next day, "I think I'm going to marry him." I said she was in shock. She wasn't.

So, glasses up. To Zuzana and Ottavio. Keep exact change on you.

Why it works: It is a story that suits a small room, a little embarrassing and completely clean, and the laugh turns into the groom's moment. The toast line is a detail from the story, so it lands without explaining itself.