Mo+Boy Tie the Knot: Toasts and Thank Yous

The tent at night? Absolutely gorgeous. Perfect backdrop for our toasts to start off the party.

[My sister and cousin introduce us and the family members, in English and Cantonese!]

It was really important to me that people close to us did the introductions. I thought it would be much more personal, more familial, and I'm thankful that my sister and cousin did such a great job!

I originally didn't want to be introduced. At all. But it seemed like it would lend some energy, so I decided it wasn't too bad after all. And it wasn't! Completely painless and not at all cheesy like I imagined.

(If you'd like to reenact it, click play on the YouTube video while reading.)

[I loved our sweetheart table. We weren't sitting there very much, but I still loved it.]

We asked our close friends to do the toasts for us. My adorable girl pals you've seen in previous posts took the mic and wished us well. While looking at photos after the wedding, I realized that they were the few friends there who knew me before I met the boy, and it was very special to have them toast us.

Next up was the boy's buddies from high school, who get props because they gave me credit for moving to San Diego and remembered that he wrote me a poem for our one month anniversary. I didn't even remember he wrote that poem.

...I should really fish it out from my shoe boxes!

[The boy looks slightly traumatized and happy at the same time in this photo. I love it.]

[Huzzah!]

Finally, it was our turn to say thank you to our guests. Although our DJ did a great job introducing our friends and playing music everyone liked, there was one part we forgot to go over: how to pronounce my name. Whoops. My whole life my name has been mispronounced (you've probably guessed it isn't 'Mo' in reality) and it would have been nice to have it pronounced correctly at my wedding. Not the end of the world, just slightly annoying. After the one incident, the boy insisted on telling him how to say it correctly in case he had to introduce us again, which he did, for the first dance. Good save boy.

So, if you have a notoriously hard to pronounce name, make sure your DJ knows how to say it!

I'm really glad we did a thank you speech, and if you don't totally puke from public speaking, I recommend doing so. We took turns thanking people close to us, and it was a nice way to end the toasts, and for me, have some closure to the wedding planning.

Surprisingly I could have talked longer (I despise public speaking and blush at the drop of a pin,) but we were running slightly behind schedule and I wanted to get dancing. So I wrapped things up, just as our first dance song started playing.

Thanks so much for coming, we hope you have a wonderful night.

[Photos by Jessamyn Harris and Sheri Tennison Berg for Jessamyn Harris Photography]