A toast for the Bride and Groom.

Ah Fook got married.

We have been good friends, and he asked me to give the toast at his wedding dinner.

Now – the problem is, traditional Chinese wedding dinner toast is threefold: One toast for the happy couple, one for the coming children, and the final one for everyone in the room. I had never done this before, and could only remember one other time when I had heard somebody giving the toast. Still, I owed it to Ah Fook to give it my best, so I sat down and came up with this.

To the Bride and Groom.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will never forget the 1^st time I met Ah Ying. Ah Fook invited me to dinner, to meet ‘his friend’. I never thought that his ‘friend’ would knock my socks off. After dinner, we were chatting about cars and the weather, and these two people were holding hands under the table, and giggling together. As though I wasn’t there.

I have to say, it was refreshing; we all tend to get disillusioned and cynical from watching TV romances, and the easy breaking of commitments in Hollywood relationships. But there, in front of me that day was love at its purest and most innocent. In Ah Fook and Ah Ying, I saw not just shared feelings, but also joy, sharing, and the beginnings of commitment; that same commitment that we see them now declaring to everyone today.

And so, I propose toast to the happy couple – thought good times and bad times, thought thick and thin, may you always succeed in your endeavors and never forget to hold hands under the table.

To the coming Children.

At the church this morning, we shared in the ‘fruit of the vine, and work of human hands’ that became the source of our unity and Salvation. A successful marriage is also the ‘fruit’ and ‘work’ of human hands, and most often, we see this ‘fruit’ in the form of children in the home.

And, so, let us drink to the children of Ah Fook and Ah Ying; may they be many, and healthy, and many, and wealthy, and many, and wise.

To all of us.

Ladies and Gentlemen: let us consider Ah Fook and Ah Ying and the love they share. May it remind us of our own lives, and the people close to us.

We are gathered here to honor them tonight, let us leave this dinner and go to our homes and honour Ah Fook and Ah Ying again by being the best husband, or wife, or mother or father, or brother or sister we can be to our own families.

Long life, good health, and prosperity to all of us.