Ordaned
My brother asked me to be the officiant for his wedding. It was one of the great honors and joys of my life. Here is the speech from that day.
Hi everyone! If everyone could please now take your seats so that we can begin.
If everyone can please check and double check for me that you have completely silenced your cell phones. That means you Dad! I don’t want to hear any UFO sounds or rock songs going off when I’m trying to make everyone cry. And finally, we ask that you please refrain from taking any photos or videos until the end of the ceremony so that the videographer can get the shots they need. Thank you.
Thank you everybody sincerely for coming here today on this gorgeous day. Look at how beautiful this space is! Today is the culmination of many months of hard work from Adrian, Karl, and their many family and friends. Today is also the uniting of beloved communities across Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond to celebrate these two. I would like us to take a moment of pause, to think of and hold in our hearts all of the many people who we love dearly and wish could be here today. The burden and fortune of a life well-lived is to have so many people who we’ve had the pleasure of loving, and the pain of losing. They are with us in spirit and heart, and I know that they would be proud of the two of you. Thank you.
It’s not everyday that you…marry your brother…Look, guys, we are in Indiana after all!…Yes that joke was what you think it was! I assure you that this is not that deeply disturbing episode of White Lotus, so let’s get into it, shall we?!
It all started with a Dunkin’ order. Their opening conversation starter t each other on the dating app Hinge. For one, a vanilla latte, the other a black coffee, no room for cream — I think we all know who had what. The other notable thing about their first impressions of each other was Adrian clocking how borderline-concerningly young Karl looked in all of his photos, like quote a ‘young Justin Bieber’. Despite this tragedy, they agreed to meet up and had their first date at Clutch Bar in River North. By the way, both of them made a point of telling me that she was late to the first date, he to the second. Equal opportunity lateness, and slander, here. When Adrian walked in — fifteen minutes late — she saw before her in the otherwise-empty bar, not a small, young, Justin-Bieber-type, but a ‘polished, fancily dressed, whole ass man, with groomed hair, drinking a Bourbon’ — whose Hinge pictures, she realized, must have been years old. She had never, in her words, dated someone so handsome or put together. Someone who made her want to order a glass of wine to impress him, and she was so let down when the bartender brought her a can of wine. She was so intimidated that she almost walked out the door. But instead, she took a risk, sat down, and they immediately began bonding over what they’ve adorably referred to ever since as an eerie and staggering number of similarities and coincidences — the guitar tattoo on her arm, both having fathers who are guitar players; their first cars both being Nissan Maximas and their first sports jersey numbers being 77; the fact that they’ve both been to and fallen in love with Prague (where they’ll soon be spending part of their honeymoon); their Chicago suburbs childhoods, just a hop skip and a jump away from each other; their shared German heritage and traditions, eating similar foods, which I think has to be code for bland German food, and similar moral compasses. the fact that at the time, she parked in the building that he worked in, and knew his security guard; her work and his apartment were incredibly close to each other; and the fact that Karl’s best friend Pat lived at the time in an apartment complex behind her. They realized they could have passed each other any number of times on the street, or attended the same party.
From there they left and he asked her what was, unbeknownst to her at the time, his way of testing a key part of their compatibility: he turned to her and presented her with two options: a nice bar, or Shamrock Club, a dive bar, that happened to be his favorite. He says that it wouldn’t have been a dealbreaker, of course, if she picked ‘wrong’, but the moment she enthusiastically said she’d rather go to the dive bar, he said in that moment she had passed over ninety percent of his tests.
Their date didn’t continue much longer, however, as she began checking her phone non-stop and eventually told him she would have to leave soon, citing that she was supposed to be watching her sister’s dog, who was freaking out. Oh no, he thought. A bullshit excuse. She’s not having a good time. So they departed, but not before he walked her across the bridge on Main Street right behind Merchandise Mart, and they shared their first kiss, outside of her Uber.
An hour or so later, she sent him a video that would reveal that she had not, in fact, been lying (but that her life was, at the time, a tad chaotic!): a fire alarm going off, a dog running around and terrorizing the blinds in her sister’s apartment, and a boiled-over pot of pasta on the stove, that she’d fallen asleep making. Mallory, Adrian’s sister, whose apartment and dog and pasta pan this was — thank you. Thank you for despite what was not the best dog sitting experience, being understanding of the fact that this led to the fateful meeting that would eventually bring us all together here today.
For their second date, they did a bar crawl and walked into an amateur, painfully terrible standup comedy set, where they sat in the front, drunk, giggly, where the comedian attempted to roast them for being goofy and on their second date, and according to Adrian they were ‘humiliated’, and according to Karl they were not; that the comedian was completely unsuccessful, because they were having too much fun and laughed right along with him.
Their third date had to wait, because she had a trip with friends out to Sister Bay, Wisconsin, and he had a trip with Pat to come see me, out at my college semester in Detroit. We went out to an old, renowned bar in Cass Corridor, The Old Miami, where we would stumble upon a set of the indie band who Karl adorably kept yelling to me over the loud music that he really really liked, and he could never ever remember the name of, Rosie Tucker. Between sets we’d take seats at the bar and he couldn’t help but pull out his phone and tell me — he’d met a girl. He was quick to tell me that he was not trying to get his hopes up too soon or expect too much right away, but it was obvious to me and Pat and anyone else in that bar who might’ve seen or overheard by the grin on his face and his inability to stop talking about her, and him proudly showing off to me her Hinge profile, that he was smitten. “There’s just a crazy amount of coincidences between us!” I humored him by listening to see if this was more than a normal amount. But at the same time, the same night, across Lake Michigan, one state away, Adrian was at a slumber party, equally unable to stop talking about Karl.
From there they saw each other more and more, and fell quickly in love. After a trip to our childhood home in River Forest, where Adrian would clock my Gilmore Girls full DVD boxed set collection and Adrian and I would learn of our similarities — huge Gilmore Girls heads, former dancers and Club Penguin players, and both having the middle name Marie. Karl would take her out to the suburbs, where she would say, frustrated at the fact that they’d spent everyday for a month together and he hadn’t asked her to be his girlfriend, “why does it matter, it’s not like we’re dating or anything” and Karl would hang his head and reveal that that was in fact the date he was planning to ask her to be his girlfriend — which he later did, cuddled up together and eating River Forest’s Bertolli’s pizza and watching the movie Anabelle.
She told me, “after the second date, my commute was so long, about an hour and a half to Mount Prospect, and I remember listening to a very particular song on the train and thinking this is the person I’m going to be with the rest of my life. I started crying, and I knew. I was just like, that’s my person. And I think our next date was the next day after that! Which made me feel better too — he kept making plans. And I was like oh, you want to see me the day after you just saw me? It was nice.”
From there, after apparently spending so much time together that they were burning through money on Ubers and where Karl had to have a sit down with his boss because he had come in late or left early one too many times to go see Adrian, they would go on our family trip to Turks and Caicos in late February of 2020 — late February of 2020 — yes, mere weeks before COVID lockdown. We’d return home, they’d move in together, get two cats, and be thrust right into lockdown together, both working from home in a one bedroom apartment, all within four or so months of dating; they said they didn’t spend more than three days apart for four or five years.
Adrian told me, “we got so lucky. I don’t know another couple that works together constantly; we’ve been away from each other very little and it’s been almost six years, and especially Covid we worked in a one bedroom apartment together and had to split our meetings, and somehow we still didn’t kill each other, so that was a big sign; and even now, this is really cute but even now we purposely wanted to work on different floors just to give each other some space, so that we’d have time to catch up with each other during the day, and Karl comes down once an hour, I’m not even joking, I know this is cheesy Dane, but he comes down once an hour and hugs me and wants to tell me everything that happened in the last hour, and I feel bad that I don’t do it as much as him, but he is constantly, he just wants to come down and talk all the time and hang out. We just don’t get tired of each other. He’s probably the one person I don’t get annoyed by”. Sorry, I don’t know that I was supposed to include that truth in the speech!
Karl told me one of the moments where he thought Adrian probably knew he was the one was when he took care of her on his birthday, after she got sick from too many oysters and wine. They curled up on the couch, and, an incredibly rare feat for anyone with our family’s level of insomnia, he fell asleep next to her on the couch, a very promising sign.
I asked them what their favorite and least favorite quirks about each other are. Karl said, her heated blanket. Which he bought, which he said is her favorite Christmas present of all time, in all 29 years of life. But, he said, “I can’t sleep when it’s on, it’s 120 degrees, and I’m sitting there spread out naked like a starfish and she’s in a parka and socks and a hoodie. It’s been the best present and my biggest regret.” He said she likes to leave all of the snack boxes, like the Ritz Crackers and the pretzels, unopened, and all the jars and caps for every liquid half screwed on, so when he goes to take them out of the cabinet they either fall or spill on him. So that’s always fun. And lastly, her fake eyelashes. She wears so many fake eyelashes, which is, quote, “like her hobby”, that…they’re everywhere, he’ll wake up in bed sometimes and it’s like ah! It’s like there’s a millipede in bed, they get stuck to Thistle all the time, there’ll be partial eyelashes stuck to her butt.
When asked Karl’s quirks Adrian said, “Karl’s really clean. He’s the cleanest person I know. I remember thinking one day it’s going to be impossible to find a husband someday that cleans behind the toilet, the area behind it; Karl cleans every nook and cranny. He’s the first to get up and do the dishes or the laundry. One of my favorite things about him is that there is no woman’s task or men’s task, we do things together, as a team. He’s so clean that sometimes I get scared and try and run to do the dishes before him. If I’m trying to go out of my way to be nice, I have to get up early and wash the dishes or else he’s going to beat me to it. It’s a race of beating Karl to wash and clean things. Very routined, just like your Grandpa Hank. Clothes-wise, everything is in a little order, a little box, everything has a reason and I think it drives him crazy about me that I’m not, so thank god he still loves me. He chews ice loudly, and he loves watching tv more than I do.” And then she told me what is possibly either one of the most psychotic or most environmentally friendly things I’ve ever heard, which is that he writes his daily to do lists and shows he wants to watch in pencil, and then, every single day, erases every last task as he does them, so that at the end of the day he’s left with the same blank page.
A few months ago I drove to Indiana and interviewed them both separately, for this speech, and asked them the same questions; and yes Adrian cried several times, and made me cry! One of the biggest delights of that experience, besides just absolutely re-affirming in every way how much these two love each other, was that so many of their answers were nearly exactly the same! I felt like I’d pulled a con and had this fun little secret, where I had to keep from smiling too hard and revealing myself, as they answered so similarly. When asked their favorite qualities in each other, they both immediately responded ‘loyalty’. And they were quick to say that they’re not referring to the toxic or controlling type of loyalty. But, as Karl put it, ‘the ride or die kind. The, if something happens, we keep it in our circle, before we go telling everyone else or making decisions, or overreacting.’ He said, ‘I never had that before. I tell her things that you don’t tell your best friend, which is very rare.’ She said, ‘I never knew loyalty was a quality I was looking for in someone, but he’s fiercely loyal to everyone around him, his friends, his family. He sticks up for people. He cares a lot about being good to his word, and being good to his friends and having good intentions, and that to him is loyalty.”
She said, “I always tell people this, but what I think is craziest is that when me and Karl were going into our relationship with each other, separately, and we didn’t know this at the time, but both of us wanted someone who fully wanted us, and didn’t play games, and you just knew that they liked you, and wanted to make an effort with you; there’s been no point from day one of talking to him that I’ve ever felt like I have put myself out there more than him. I always told myself, I’m going to stay vulnerable and put my heart on my sleeve, even when I’m hurt and everyone else I know is playing a game, because the right person will find me and not do that to me, and he did. That’s one of my favorite parts about us dating, is that he literally always texts me and is really communicative and never made me feel like he was playing a game with me, and he never has since.” She also told me that she loves that he is a bit of a momma’s boy, and that he loves his family deeply, and had pictures of our mom and me in his dating profile.
When I asked Karl why marriage, he said: “If I didn’t marry her, I think I’d be regretting it the rest of my life. Because I’ve never met anyone like her. Even when I was dating, it was transnational, people were mean, belittling, not interested, had other things going on, and I felt with her, she cared and was interested, from day one. We were both in the same place, we’d both been hurt, and didn’t want other people, we were sick of the whole game and just wanted someone else who would put in the same effort and cared as much as we did. I feel like I finally found someone who put in 100% and matched my 100%. Usually it’s about 60/40 or 80/20. For the first time it was 100/100. And if someone treats you that well I feel like you have a duty to not let them go. For the first time it wasn’t, I have to see my girlfriend, it was, I can’t wait to see her.”
Karl told me he loves Adrian’s love of life and experiences, and how much she loves the people in her life and worries about their happiness. Not in the toxic eternally self-sacrificing way, but in the way that she can’t help but care so deeply about everybody else’s wellbeing. Adrian is excited to continue the Langhans name and legacy, and to bring two families together under one beautiful partnership, where they are a team in everything that they do.
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If you guys don’t mind me getting a little preachy here for a moment. I am orDANEd afterall. The thing about the current time we live in, a lot of people have critiqued and shat on modern dating culture and relationships. They complain of the horrible experience of dating apps, cite divorce rate statistics, talk about how bad dating has become. And a lot of that is valid. But something I tell people and that I think is actually really beautiful, liberating, and important and actually a good thing about our current state of relationships is that for so long, the choice of who to date and marry, and whether to marry at all, was strictly and harshly enforced and expected, with the full force of the law, familial pressures, and arrangements. There was a whole lot of pressure to stay married no matter what, and there was very little choice. While there is a lot to attraction, chemistry, and compatibility that is largely out of our hands, relegated to the mysterious realm of random chance or fate, once you find someone with whom all of that aligns, for many of us today, if we’re lucky, the decision of who to commit to and marry, and stay married to, is a choice. And that, I will insist to you all, is one of the most beautiful compliments and gifts you can give someone. Choice. The two of you get to roll over next to each other, day after day, look at the other person across the room or on the couch, and go, despite it all, despite any potential hardships or bad days, everyday you wake up and all over again, they are choosing me. Warts and all. Heated blankets and meticulous cleaning and tv watching and chewing ice and chewing with one’s mouth open and lids spilling out of the cabinets and eyelashes stuck to Thistle’s butt and all! They get to know, this person doesn’t have to be here, they don’t have to stay. They could be spending their life in so many different ways, in our world of infinite possibilities. And they chose me. That’s fucking cool.
When asked what he hoped they’d be doing 50 years from now, Karl said, “I hope we’re still best friends. I hope we have a place here and a place in Chicago. I hope we’re traveling together a lot, with close happy families. Summers in Chicago, maybe winters here. More cats. If ours aren’t dead yet.”
Adrian said, “Karl’s going to be such a healthy whippersnapper. He’s going to be kicking my ass into shape and we’re going to be eating so healthy. I imagine us in our cute little cozy cottage, being good people to people around us, trying to be good in our community. To be good to other people, and leave a legacy behind. And to never let anyone feel forgotten.”
Adrian and Karl, you are two of the most loving and caring people I’ve ever met, to your friends and family. You are unbelievably generous with your time, your inclusion, and wanting to bring everyone together, and show up and be there for everyone, in the ways that you’ve both always wanted to be loved, and have so endlessly and effortlessly given to each other. The amount of people here today is a testament to the size of the communities you’ve built, and the amount of people who love you. It’s one of your favorite qualities about each other, and one of all of our favorite qualities about you. Adrian, I couldn’t have asked for a better sister, and Karl, I couldn’t have asked for a better, kinder, more fun, more funny, or more accepting big brother. So if I can say anything to you — to the two of you — directly, here today, it’s that you’ve done it. You’ve shown us all how much you love us and we don’t doubt that you’ll continue to do so for a lifetime. So, as hard as I know it is to fully believe and receive, as much as you can, don’t doubt the goodness of your characters and the size of your hearts. You get to put yourselves and each other first now. You get to relax into each other, take a deep breath, exhale, look around, take in and enjoy the culmination of all the months of work for this wedding and all the years it took to get to and find each other, the pain, the hard times, and relax into each other’s arms, for a lifetime. You’ve found your person, you’ve found your 100 / 100 percent effort person, you’ve found someone who will let you pour all of yourself into their palms like water, water that they will endlessly, delicately cradle, that they will carry for as long and as far as it takes, to not spill a drop. You’ve found your heated blanket person, your comfiest couch person, your person you can sink into, and love. For a lifetime. And now you get to travel! And have fun! And party! I wish you a lifetime of racing to do the dishes before the other person can because you’re so in love with each other, and you just want to do right by each other.
And so, the last thing I’ll say before I actually do the thing and shut the fuck up and marry these two! — and you know what I mean by marry them, you freaks! — is that I’d like to subject Karl to a quote from the aforementioned show that Adrian and I have loved for so many years, that I think speaks to their love. Feel free to say it along if you recognize it:
Loving you the way I do,
I know we’re gonna make it through.
And I would go to the ends of the earth
Oh, darlin’, to me that’s what you’re worth
Where you lead Iwill follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, if you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead
If you’re out on the road
Feelin’ lonely and so cold
All you have to do is call my name
And I’ll be there on the next train
So, without further ado, Pat, may I please have the rings?
Karl-almost-named-Wolfgang Fredrick Langhans, the hot dog and brat king of Long Beach Indiana, do you take Adrian, the most sentimental, emotional, and earnest person at a bachelorette party I’ve ever met McLaughlin, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, forever and ever?
Please place the ring on Adrian’s finger.
And Adrian Marie McLaughlin, the only person I’ve ever met who likes the name Langhans, do you take Karl to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love and cherish him, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, forever and ever?
Please place the ring on Karl’s finger.
By the power vested in me by Indiana and UniversalLifeChurch.org, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss!
Alright everybody, cocktail hour is beginning, you can either go to the mobile bar outside or to the bar inside the reception area. Thank you!
