Pro Pics, Part 9: The Toasts

Next up on the agenda were the toasts. This series of photos resulted in some of my absolute favorites from our entire day.

My matron of honor (my cousin, Lindsay), and Michael's best man (his friend from high school, Justin) were our speakers.

Linds was up first. We are only 9 months apart in age, so we grew up together. Her speech centered around a lot of our memories and funny moments from when we were children.

I'm pretty sure this was the part when she told everyone how we used to make up dance routines to Wilson Phillips and Barbra Streisand songs. Then we used to make my mom videotape them. Luckily, none of the videos surfaced for the wedding. Or for blackmail, for that matter.

"When I got married a few years ago, my sister was my maid of honor. In her speech, she gave some great advice. She said, 'Lindsay, never go to bed angry.' (pause) 'Stay up and fight ALL NIGHT LONG!"

Then, she continued: "Well, I'm here to tell you... GO TO BED and get some sleep! It's not worth it!"

Lindsay did a great job. It was the perfect matron of honor speech.

Uh oh. Justin has the mic. I wasn't sure what to expect. He started off with a short tale about how he and Michael met, and reiterated some of the stupid jokes they have shared over the years.

To fully appreciate the following photos, I feel like I have to tell a little back story.

To try to tell a short version of the story Justin shared with our guests: Basically, we were at a Buffalo Bills game a few years back (just the three of us--Justin, Michael and myself). We were tailgating, when we saw this guy in a throwback Buffalo Bills Steve Tasker jersey. He was tossing a football innocently with his friends.

When he turned around, we noticed something. It didn't say "Tasker" on the back of his jersey. It said "Koch." It was one of those personalized NFL jerseys that people get with their own last names on them. So, to amuse ourselves over our beers and subs, we started making up all of these stories about Koch. How he got the jersey (Debbie and the kids gave it to him for his birthday), what he does for living, etc. I even managed to be all stealth about it and snapped a few photos of him. For whatever reason, we thought all of this was hilarious.

Ever since that game (probably four years ago now), we have continuously used Koch as an inside joke. During his toast, Justin shared this story with everyone. Then, he said, "Now... all the way from Buffalo... I give you KOCH!"

As you can tell from this photo, EVERYONE turned to look. Justin managed to fake out every. single. guest at our wedding. Even our videographer came up to us afterward and said, "I totally turned around! He had me fooled!" Even Justin's girlfriend (who just became his fiancee this weekend!), who knew the joke ahead of time, said she turned.

Of course, I never expected that the actual Koch would come out of the back. I suspected he was going to have someone come out dressed like him or something. Two seconds later, Justin said, "Nah, I'm just kidding."

Once we realized the joke he had just pulled off, we were hysterical.

I think Justin was pretty proud of himself. :)


Then he pulled out a matching throwback Steve Tasker jersey (just like the one Koch was wearing that day). We suspected what might be on the back of it (I love Michael's face in this photo), but it didn't make the "big reveal" any less funny.

HILARIOUS. Justin presented Michael with his very own "Koch" jersey. And now we have a whole new set of jokes to make. Best speech ever.