Amy & Justin

Thank you, Amy and Justin, for choosing to spend this epic occasion with all of us here at the Galena Fish Hatchery. Amy and Justin, what you've accomplished here today is no small feat. Your journey began way before you chose this beautiful venue or even decided to spend the rest of your lives together. Your journey began the moment you two first met. You took the time to learn what makes the other person smile, what makes them laugh, and how to support them when life is less than simple. You welcomed each other's families, communities, and lifelong friends and joined them together with warmth and enthusiasm. You built a new village with your love, and you have worked together every day to support this village as it changes and grows. Marriages bring hard days just as they bring beautiful ones like today. This day is a reminder of what your love has already accomplished, and of the amazing possibilities of what it can continue to accomplish and overcome in the many, many years ahead of you.

So let's talk a little bit about how we got to this point today. It all started the way so many have before you, and the way so many will follow: on a dating app. After chatting online for a while, you decided to meet in person for a date. Justin invited Amy for coffee in downtown Reno, and she brought her dog, Susie. Susie couldn't make it today; she sends her regards. They had coffee and then walked along the river all the way to Idlewild Park, stopping for a while to sit under a tree, chat, and continue to get to know each other better. When the date ended, both Justin and Amy knew they had something special. That was in April of 2023.

They absolutely love to spend time together, and they do everything together. In fact, each has picked up the other's athletic hobby: Justin now plays tennis, and Amy now goes rock climbing. When I asked Amy what she loves most about Justin, she said it's his kindness and openness toward her. She said she can talk to him about anything and knows he will never judge her. When I asked Justin what he loves most about Amy, he said she's accepting of him no matter what type of mood he's in, no matter what situation they find themselves in.

When it was time to talk about marriage, Justin took advantage of the romance of the Hawaiian Islands to tell Amy that he couldn't imagine a future without her in it and wanted to take their relationship to the next level. Luckily, she agreed. But this took Amy completely by surprise. You see, she thought Justin never wanted to get married. But here we are today. After today, Justin and Amy plan to continue their love story with rescue dogs Millie and Hazel, doing everything together, exploring new fun things to do together, hopefully while traveling the world. Because life really is good.

Justin, do you take Amy to be your partner in the adventure that lies ahead? Do you promise to walk by her side to the ends of the earth, to love, encourage, and support her in every endeavor? Do you commit to opening yourself up completely to her and share with her your entire being, to share her laughter as well as her tears? And do you take her as your wife, for now until the end of time? "I do." Amy, do you take Justin to be your partner in the adventure that lies ahead? Do you promise to walk by his side to the ends of the earth, to love, encourage, and support him in his every endeavor? Do you commit to opening yourself up completely to him and share with him your entire being, to share his laughter as well as his tears? And do you take him as your husband, for now until the end of time? "I do."

I never thought I'd be lucky enough to meet you: the person I can say anything to without fear of being judged. Someone I can play tennis and cribbage with, rock climb with, and just do all the fun stuff with. My person, who I actually miss even when it's just a short trip to the grocery store. You're my friend, my best friend. I mean, people write songs about this stuff. You're a one of a kind blend of smart and handsome, sensitive and funny, feminist and kind. Sometimes I wish we had met earlier in life, but I've come to know that we met at just the right time in our lives, exactly when we were both ready.

Just a few of the countless things I love about you: you make an amazing dog co-parent. You always want to make sure you're keeping up your end of the household chores. You're a true partner, and I feel like we're in this life thing together. You're great at finding silver linings and keeping things positive. You're the most thoughtful gift giver, most recently with that heated vest so I don't get cold during winter tennis. You go out of your way to make me feel good about myself. You're very generous. You share everything, from your food to your hoodies to your heart.

Now I'm going to share some things that I plan to bring to this marriage. I can't promise I'll start sharing my dessert, but here's what I can promise. I promise to keep sharing my thoughts and feelings with you, even when it's not easy. I promise to make you feel as special as you make me feel. I promise to keep working at being less robot and more human. I promise to love you unconditionally. I promise to never stop making occasional and alarming animal noises. I promise to take care of you when you're sick and fetch everything you need. And I promise to accept you always, because you're perfect just the way you are.

It's said that I can't picture any version of my future without you in it. That is true this day and for the rest of our lives. You ground me when I'm anxious, and you pick me up when I'm down. You're intelligent, caring, and very funny, even though you don't think so. A few years ago I would have never imagined such an amazing life with such an amazing person, and I vow to build upon those strong foundations that we have built together. I promise to love you for who you are and who you will become. I will support your goals, respect your individuality, and prioritize communication. More than anything, I promise to be a rock. When things get tough, we face them together. I love you to the moon and back, and I can't wait to see your beautiful face for the rest of my life.

They say that rings are a symbol of the never ending circle of love. Love has no beginning and it has no end, no giver and no receiver, for each of you is the giver and each of you is the receiver. So may these rings that you're about to exchange always remind you of the vows you've just taken today.

Justin: "Amy, I promise to always keep you as my favorite person: to laugh with, go on adventures with, support through life's toughest moments, be proud of, grow old with, and find new reasons to love you every day." Amy: "Justin, I promise to always keep you as my favorite person: to laugh with, go on adventures with, support through life's toughest moments, be proud of, grow old with, and find new reasons to love you every day."

In closing, I'd like to share a poem with you. It's called "What I Learned About Love, I Learned From My Dog." Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride together. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them. Let others know when they've invaded your territory. Take naps together, and stretch before rising. Run, romp, and play daily. Be loyal. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently. Thrive on the attention, and let people touch you. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body. No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout. Run right back and make friends. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk together. Love each other unconditionally.

And now, Justin and Amy, because you have pledged your love and commitment to each other before these witnesses, I'm pleased to pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal your vows with a kiss. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, for the very first time, Justin and Amy, a married couple.

You guys are all waiting for something funny, but it's going to be a little sappy and a little humble. Thank you, most of all, Amy. You did all of this. Let's give her a big round of applause. Short and sweet. Thanks to all the old friends. Thanks to Joe, thanks to our DJ and caterer, and our photographer. And I also want to thank my mom, and Sherry, whose wife stayed home to help my mom stream this. Love you, Mom. Dad came all the way from New Hampshire. Love you.

I told Justin, I get too emotional at weddings, I'm probably going to have a panic attack, so there's no way. He said, "That's cool, man, don't worry about it, I understand." Then I told my wife that, and she said, "You're the best man. You've got to give a speech." So here it is. In true fashion, I did it last night and wrote it down, and I'm just going to read it and hopefully keep it together.

I met Justin in 1994, as I tell my kids. We lived in the same neighborhood and got off at the same bus stop. One day after the bus, I asked Justin if he wanted to hop the fence and go down to the culvert to smoke the rest of a cigarette butt I'd been saving all week. To that, he declined. But the seal had been broken, and we quickly became good friends despite both of us already having very different pre-existing frameworks. Justin was a jock, and I was a skateboarder. He taught me about being social and going to parties. I taught him about four-wheeling and hot-boxing Jeeps. We went on to become college roommates, which was absolutely wild in a 24-hour town. I'm going to leave that right there, because my kids are here tonight.

Justin and I have gone through life together despite having no professional or family ties. What that means is that we chose each other. There were no professional relationships to maintain, no family ties binding us together. We simply chose each other. And I believe this exact concept is very important to remember in marriage: choosing each other. I've been happily married for 15 years this September, and my main piece of advice for you today is to remember that you chose each other. It has helped me remember my gratitude for my wife and my marriage, in really good and tough times. Amy and Justin, out of all the people in the world, you two are getting married today, officially choosing each other. Remember this when everything is going well, when you're happy together, when you feel supported by one another and things are going your way. Take a second to remember that you chose this person, and be grateful they chose you. Also remember that you chose this person, and they chose you, when things are hard, when they're having a bad day, and when the sad things inevitably happen. Remember you chose each other. Be grateful you're the person they chose to be there for them on those days, too.

One thing I did want to share about Justin is that he and I have laughed together possibly more than any two people in the world. It should be illegal. And we were probably doing something illegal while we were laughing. Nonetheless, I hope that you and Amy can laugh as much as we have, and hopefully more, as husband and wife. Justin, I'm proud of you, not just for getting married today, but for being a great friend always, and for the person you're becoming. Amy and Justin, thank you for choosing each other, thank you for seeing each other, and thank you for making each other feel seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses. I stole this off the internet today, but I love it: Here's to a perfect pair. May the best of your past be the worst of your future.

I'm Sarah. I have been friends with Amy since before 1994. I don't think either of us could put a year on it exactly, but we know we knew each other before junior high. When we started junior high, we spent time in gym class playing the dot game, where you make a grid of dots and draw lines and put your initials in the boxes. It was way more interesting than whatever our gym teacher was going on about. Amy was always one of those people who was awesomely cool, and she has no idea that other people look at her and think, "I wish I could be like that." Always, since we were 13. She was in orchestra, first chair violin. She was great at art. She was great at sports. What I remember particularly is that she was in Mr. Steeples' seventh grade math class for smart kids. Not all of us were. So she's always been an all around awesome person.

Before she met Justin, she'd been learning to play football on a team here and got a serious knee injury. It was awesome and painful. The guy she was dating at the time ignored her the day she was getting her surgery. She's getting knee surgery, she's going to be laid up for weeks, and he ignores her. She tells me about this and I'm like, oh, thank God, he's gone.

Then I fly out to visit her. She's more mobile, she's done lots of PT, and she tells me she's dating this guy Justin, and do I want to meet him? So I meet Justin, and he's a pretty awesome guy too. He likes movies, he makes her laugh, he shows up for her. She's got some taste here. We decide we're going to go see the new Evil Dead movie, and the theater we're going to has stairs that make this little pyramid kind of thing, mildly dangerous stairs for people who are totally able and paying attention. And Amy decides she's going to hop up the stairs on the knee she just had surgery on. In theory it was really good for her, because she could do this. And I notice Justin is standing just to her right, and he's watching her. He's not invading her space. He's not telling her how to do it. But he's paying attention. He's aware she might need a hand, and I swear he's got one hand out, ready to catch her. And I was like, yes. Thank God that other guy was gone, so she could be ready to meet the guy who instinctively was ready to be there and catch her. I've been friends with Amy for more than 35 years. I know she's ready to catch him. It was just really nice to see a guy ready to do that for her. I wish you both all the best.

I'll keep this short, because I don't have a lot of battery life left. I'm Justin's brother, I don't know if you know that. I mean, you wouldn't suspect it. One thing I know about Justin is that he's always been kind of a seeker. He's always looking for something. He's always up for things. He has all kinds of interests, and he almost never settles on one thing; it's always different things. I think that's probably what a lot of you are attracted to in Justin, that he's always sort of up for things. But along with that, there's also a peace he was missing: I'm seeking something, but there's a peace that I'm missing. And when I first saw him with Amy, I figured that was the thing. She is the stable thing that can keep him anchored, even when he still has that spirit of seeking. So I think they're a great couple, and I'm really happy that they've done it.

I'm very proud of the man he's become, and what he was going to become, because he was very competitive. He wanted to go after anything he wanted to do. He is such a loving son, and I am so happy that he met Amy. I just met her myself, and I'm in love too.

I'm married to Bryce. Let's give it up for Bryce. Bryce and Justin have been friends for a little while, since they worked together. When I met Justin for the first time, we were getting ready to go to the opening at Bentley, and Justin was getting ready in a fastidious fashion, we'll say. He looks at me and says, "I don't know if I like this outfit. Is this outfit good? Do you think I should change?" And he was dead serious. He just loves dressing up, and immediately after that we were best friends from there on out: you love dressing up? I love dressing up. This is perfect. I could tell that Justin had just the kind of heart that I wanted to be around all the time. So we were friends for a long time, and there were some ups and downs in that, and some hardships, but he always needed somebody to recognize that, that person who would bring him up. It took a little while, but we got there finally. And Amy's just the best, and she's a stone cold fox, as he said from the beginning. And she's also the sweetest person in the world, and complements him the most. I couldn't be happier for the both of them. Congratulations, you guys.

I'm jumping in too, because I feel like Amy's not getting enough love in this, and I just really want to recognize the heck out of her. That is a special human being, especially to put up with Justin and nurture and love and foster him. But to be the force of nature that you are, to take every task and become the best at it, as your best friend said, from I don't know, 12 years old, to be the best at everything, and then be understated, which is pretty impressive. "Oh no, I'm just quiet." Quietly being the best at everything.

Liz and I got Justin, "Juicy J" as we like to call him, into rock climbing. Let that stick for everybody: call him Juicy J, please. We got him into rock climbing and he took to it like a fish to water. Neither Elizabeth nor I climbed like that; I'm the only one who's stupid enough to enjoy it. Justin got really good, and then brought Amy into the fold. And within, I think it was a week, she was outpacing Elizabeth. It's very obvious who was the most upset about this, because Liz was trying. She was upset for about a week, and then Amy just crushed it, in typical Amy fashion. So I could not be happier for the two of you. It's equal sided, every side is matching, and it is going to be a lot of fun. I'm super excited. I said it twice, that's how much I meant it. I love you guys. I love you very much.

My love for Justin comes from a place of brotherhood, a place where we see each other, set examples for each other, and always push each other to be the best we can ever be. I've known Justin long enough to know when he's positive, when he's negative, when he's down, when he's up. I talked to him for years before he met this woman, and I never heard his voice; I heard my friend, a little lost, a little bit like me, always looking for what we were looking for. He called me a couple of months after he met her and told me that he had met his wife. She probably didn't even know it yet, let's be honest. But he told me that was the woman he was going to marry, and I was 1,500 miles away, and I heard his voice. Since that day, that's the Justin I've heard: a loud voice, just giving her everything. So first off, thank you. Thank you for making my friend home. Thank you for being everything that he was looking for.

We've been best friends for a long time. Oilers, Vikings: we'd sit there on the sideline, we never got to actually play, and we'd hit our helmets together to make it look like we were actually hitting our helmets together, like we were big shots in the football game. Justin and I grew up together, played sports. He's kept me level headed throughout a lot of things in my life. He's helped me out tremendously, mentally, and through a lot of stuff. He is my best friend, through and through. I just want to say I love you, and I'm proud of you. You're my boy, and I'm proud of you.