The maid of honor

I was at a lovely wedding reception last evening. The venue was beautiful with bamboos plants, water bodies and wet black rocks within. The cake looked like a mini building, delightfully adorned. The DJ was rocking the party and one after another, the couples from the wedding party electrified the mood making grand entries with signature moves.

Soon the couple assumed their thrones and it was time for speeches. The best man introduced himself and made a quick and funny speech. Everyone raised their champagne glasses to toast with him. The servers poured some fine wine with warm bread. My table was far from the thrones and it was an outdoor party. A tall and elegant maid of honor dressed in a breathtaking midnight blue number walked up the stage. She started the speech sharing some sweet memories from her 16 years of knowing the bride. We had some fun people on the table with us and the conversations were quite enjoyable. So was the wine and the hors d'oeuvres that were being served piping hot.

A few minutes later, one of the guys on my table cracked a joke about how the bridesmaid was still on the 2nd page of her speech. My back was facing her and the water stream indoors made it hard to hear clearly. I turned around and there she was, still on the stage, still speaking. I tried to hear intently. It had a range of emotions from funny to touchy to subtle-attack-on-the-groom. Colorful salads got served as conversations got funnier. Halfway through the salad, all sorts of anecdotes about speeches-gone-bad episodes from previous weddings filled the air. Suddenly we heard everyone clap and very mechanically, we did too. I looked behind and the maid of honor was now speaking with sobs and tears rolling down her face. Her tears had elicited a huge applause. I noticed that she was holding a thick set of several pages of paper that she was reading from.

Entree serving had initiated a while later. She had spoken for approximately 25 minutes and still going strong and everyone but the newlyweds and the videographer were doing their own thing. The men far outnumbered the women on my table so needless to say the jokes were getting funnier and meaner. I did my part in not letting them roll with it since I felt for the poor girl crying her heart out at this point but that hardly worked. I have no idea when she finally wrapped up.

It was the perfect case of men are from mars and women are from venus. It's second nature to men to express everything on their mind succinctly sans the drama. And women are just emotional and elaborately expressive souls. They can recall even the minutest details from decades ago and describe in extreme detail when relevant. Both approaches are good in their place but it's definitely fun watching women get carried away.

I’ll hold it against her that I had to leave without the cake ;)