Industry Figure Tom Chappell

“Jeff asked me if I wouldn’t mind making some introductory remarks before we got started. Of course, being Jeff, he didn’t ask me last month, or last week — he asked me this morning. As Jeff explained, ‘Dude, I wasn’t going to wait to ask you right before the ceremony!’

So, perhaps in accordance with what I might call the Genius of Jeff’s Plan, I do have some remarks, but they are Spectacularly Brief.

It’s often said at this point in the ceremony, and rightly so, that marriage is a solemn promise between men and women (or in this case, between a man and a woman), and not something to be entered into lightly. I’ve known Jeff for 15 years, and Naomi for almost as long as Jeff has. They sit, in my estimation, at the very pinnacle of the ranks of ‘Couples Who Were Made for Each Other.’ They’re so good-natured, and so comfortable in each others’ company, that I certainly couldn’t imagine a better choice for either of them.

Naturally, there has been some give and take. In Jeff’s bachelor days, though he was a pretty thorough vegetarian, he would still happily eat fish. As he put it, ‘Fish is not meat, because I don’t eat meat, and I eat fish, and therefore, fish is not meat.’ After meeting Naomi, he saw the folly of these words, declaring fish ‘our furry friends of the sea,’ and together they have gone further, avoiding even (with the exception of today’s debacle) the cruelty of, for example, roasting an ear of corn, preferring instead to devour it alive, together.

So, to the ceremony.

[I deleted the following remarks, and the business with the sash, because it was too likely to seem inappropriate, especially in such a large, diverse crowd, but it would have been funny]: As you may or may not know, I have no special powers, other than Family Friend, Industry Figure, and Nemesis. If I’d been a little more on the ball, I might have quickly gotten myself ordained at one of those ministry-by-mail outfits, and Jeff and Naomi might have found themselves married under the auspices of Mjumbo of the Congo. But no. However, since they met at the prestigious University of California at Irvine, where they both attained their degrees, I have brought the Sash of Higher Learning [puts on the sash from recent graduation at CSUN], under whose authority I will administer the vows which Jeff and Naomi will make here today.

[Vows and Rings]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you today, Mr. and Mrs. Jeff and Naomi Lorenzini!”