My Best Man Speech

On Friday, August 3rd, my brother got married.  I had the special honor of being his best man and with that responsibility, I wrote him a speech.  Since I've had the speech saved on my computer, I decided to post it here.  The real speech was a little different, but this was the guideline that I followed.  The following is dedicated to my brother Kyle and his new wife, Mattie.

I would like to thank everyone for coming out to celebrate the marriage of Kyle and Mattie Brightman.  For those of you who don’t know, I’m Kyle’s brother Cody and I would like to share a few thoughts.  I’ve known Kyle my entire life.  That’s twenty three years of memories that have.  I wanted to share some of the embarrassing ones, but then I figured telling people that he slept with the bathroom light on until he was ten would be a little tasteless.  Then I’d figure that I’d tell the story about how I borrowed our parent’s car without permission and it was Kyle who pointed out to my mom that someone stole the Camero.  But thinking of that got me reminiscing about the Cody and Kyle crime fighting team.

One day, before the rise of cell phones, Kyle and I were being nosey and listening in on a phone conversation that my sister was having.  Apparently Paige and a friend that was staying over were concocting a super secret plan to “borrow” the car, which ironically Kyle now drives.  So Kyle and I decided to join forces to bring down a common enemy who has thrown us under the bus many a time.  It was nearing 1130 at night when my sister and her friend came down to make sure we weren’t going to interrupt their plans, but we knew it was a ploy.   Almost immediately after they went back upstairs, Kyle and I left through his window and landed ourselves underneath our dad’s camper.  We waited until our bandit sister and her sidekick escaped the house, marked the car’s wheels with rocks, and pushed it twenty yards down the street.  We patiently waited our move as the girls realized that they didn’t know how to operate a stick shift.  They’d get ten feet before doo doo doo the car stalled.  Once they reached the corner I looked at Kyle and said, “go get mom and dad, stat!”  I rushed to my vehicle for a chase while Kyle burst into my parent’s room, flipping the lights on, and screaming “MOM!  DAD!  WAKE UP!  PAIGE TOOK THE CAR!  THEY LEFT!”  Kyle had later told me that waking dad up like that was a bad idea because his first reaction to the unnecessary chaos was to try and punch Kyle in the face.  It’s too bad our crime fighting team ended the same night it started Kyle, I’m sure we could have changed the world brother. 

I’ve watched Kyle grow up alongside me over the years and I’m very proud of his accomplishments.  I’m proud to see that he’s all growd up with a great college education and a great job.  I’m also very happy for him to have found a person as great as Mattie.  You guys now get to experience the greatest thing about marriage.  Each other.  Tomorrow when you wake up, the world will feel complete, everything will sounds better, everything will taste better, and even the air will smell better, assuming you brush your teeth.  Everything becomes better when you have someone to share it with.  Cherish these moments because before you know it you’ll have kids of your own and time will begin to fly.  But just remember through all the chaos that you love each other and that no matter what obstacles may face you, together you can get through them.