My granddaughter, Kaija Wahlquist, married Forrest Major last Saturday. I didn’t perform the wedding but this is what I said:
I am going to preface my wedding toast to you with a bit of Grandfatherly privilege, including what I said at Bjorn and Maisey’s wedding. Kaija,I don’t know if you were listening to the golden words that poured from my tongue or if you were standing there in the wedding party scheming and plotting about how you could be the one to catch Maisey’s bouquet when she threw it off the balcony. As I remember, you did catch the bouquet. Forrest, was that the moment that you knew the jig was up, that your goose was cooked?
What I said to Bjorn and Maisey I’ll share with you and it’s something I got from Harville Hendricks and it’s this: we are somehow instinctively drawn to someone that we feel can meet our deepest real needs. Our task in a marriage is to work to meet our spouse’s real needs. In the process of working to do that, our deepest real needs get taken care of. I like that; it’s win-win and God seems to like win-win. So it makes good sense to really do the job for our partner.
The second thing I’ll say is that there are times when life kicks real hard. And life is not fair. What got Marina and me through those times is that we decided to make Jesus our Lord and then tried to live out what that commitment means. I commend that to you. Further, find a group of people, a congregation, that will help you along life’s journey, a group of people so that when life does kick hard, you know they have your back.
Finally, I encourage you not to take this gathering for granted. You are blessed by having everyone here wishing you well. Unless there could be a disgruntled old boyfriend or girlfriend here, everyone here is here to wish you the very best and that you will have a wonderful life together and a very successful marriage. You really are blessed; not everyone is as fortunate. When Marina and I got married, we had active opposition. Some of Marina’s friends and some of my friends and some family actively worked after the fact to get us to unravel our marriage, get us to change our minds, change our decision. I was bounced out of the church I grew up in, ex-communicated because I married a divorced woman with two children. But you are greatly blessed by all of us here who wish you the best and who are rooting for you. It’s not something to take for granted.
Now wouldn’t it be wonderful if by some magic or miracle you were able to convene us again 50 years from now and you were able to say to us, “Half a century ago you came together to wish us a wonderful life together and that we would have a hugely successful marriage. And folks, you know what? That has been our story! That is what we’ve lived!” So may that BE your story! May you have an outrageously successful marriage! May God bless the two of you and may God bless your marriage!
And all the people said. . . . AMEN! Mazeltof! Prosit! Salud! Skol!