By Jett Pe Benito
He may be the college roommate, the younger brother, the cousin or the childhood best friend. Whoever he may be, you as the groom have the rare opportunity of bestowing upon another man the title of “best man”. An announcement that your best man-to-be may find hard to live up to, so the following “best men” have their stories to tell on what it takes to be, well, the best man
Who was the groom?
Fred: My older brother, Matthew.
Robert: My best friend since childhood, Rudy.
Were you expecting to be made the best man?
Fred: It was sort of expected since I was the only other guy in the family other than my father and besides that, Matthew didn’t want it any other way. I had to admit when I heard him say that I was his best man, I felt good that I would finally be able to give something back to my brother.
Robert: Rudy surprised me by calling on me one day to tell me that I was going to be his best man. I wasn’t really expecting it, although we kept in touch since our high school days, I knew that we went our separate paths. He became a corporate executive and I became a teacher. But when we met and got to talk, Rudy hasn’t changed a bit. He was still the same guy who used to pester me to death to go have dinner at their house every other day.
Were you scared of the things that you had to do before, during and after the ceremony?
Fred: I wasn’t at all scared, maybe because the groom was my brother. We’ve helped each other get out of scrapes all the time. Not that his getting married was a scrape to get out of, but what I meant was, I knew that I was there to get him through all kinds of life situations. This was just one of them.
Robert: You know how those movies showed the best man getting the groom in trouble, organizing the stag party and eventually losing the ring, the troublemaker of sorts but lovable neverthless? Well, I had everything planned out. No way was I going to botch up the ceremony by coming unprepared. I was Robin to his Batman, Starsky to his Hutch, Scrappy to his Scooby. What I didn’t know was that I was playing Dumber to his Dumb.
What did you do to fulfill your role as best man?
Fred: I anticipated what he wanted me to do. I knew that I had to be there for more than keeping the ring and giving him a party. Whenever I thought that he needed my help, I would tag along. From picking the tux, delivering invitations, booking the venue to even patching things up with his bride-to-be when they had a fight.
Robert: Remember when I mentioned that I was Dumber to his Dumb? Well, maybe he was having the jitters and became contagious. I went with Rudy to do everything that was suppose to be done 2 weeks before the wedding, I was wondering why nobody was sending his or her RSVP for the wedding. That was when Rudy realized that he forgot to send out the invitations. We fixed everything mighty quickly before Jane could suspect anything. Good thing we solved it. How? Well, lets just say that the courier services made a killing that week because of us. I fulfilled the role of the best man because I was there when Rudy needed me most. I was Dumber to his Dumb because on the day of the wedding I almost forgot that I was the one who was suppose to drive them to the airport for their flight. They had been sitting in the car for more than 15 minutes when I came running out.
Do you think you were really the best man?
Fred: You bet I was! The ceremony was great, everybody had fun and it will always be remembered that I made my older brother make his wedding day the happiest day of both their lives. Kidding aside, what was important was that Matthew thought I did good. That’s what counts.
Robert: I see being the best man much like being a godfather to a child. The parents picked you to be the second parent. Not that I planned to be Jane’s second groom but I would like to think that Rudy picked me because I was like him. Rudy showed me that for him I was the best man.
