My toast to my daughter, the bride.

Eliza had always asked me how you knew when you were in love. I said "you just know". While she had her share of romances, starting in her head with her grade six teacher and then Billy Ray Cyrus, through a variety of characters who served to raise my blood pressure to monumental proportions, she really didn’t know.
After meeting Andrew, she also didn't know the day she found Andrew sitting on the toilet eating Captain Crunch and watching the hockey game from a television strategically placed in the room across from the bathroom.
She didn't know the day he graciously helped an elderly couple across a frozen parking lot so they didn't slip in a sudden ice storm, and they offered him money to buy himself some pants and a decent pair of shoes.
She didn't know about an hour after he has milk, cheese or ice cream and has to text message him in the bathroom asking if he is ok and to keep it down he was waking the baby.
She didn't know when he took her vegetables out of the vegetable drawer and the fruit out of the fruit drawer in the fridge and filled them with Lucky Lager.

She didn't know when she found his toenails neatly stacked on the living room carpet. Many times.

She didn't know when he poisoned her with shellfish.

She didn't know when she had to call Hay Electric to ask for an electrician to change her light bulb in the kitchen.

Now I heard that they fell in love on the Lady Donna, yes, love was made that day.

She knew in a moment on sky pilot rock.

She knew when he chose their first movie to see together: not Love Story, not Ever After, not An Affair to Remember, not even Titanic.......no, it was Harold and Kumar

She knew when she fell out of the kayak and he didn’t say anything about her granny panties.

She knew when he laughed at her flatulence and tried to top it.

She knew when he was pretending not to watch the Bachelor, Desperate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, and American Idol.


She knew when, very pregnant, she threw up in Ian’s car Andrew cleaned it up.

She knew when he carried her pink suitcase up to her hospital room and wore closed in shoes for the first part of labour.

She knew when he held their daughter in his arms and she watched him fall in love with the other girl in his life.


Some people know that Eliza depends a lot on what I know. After all, I have been known to make a mother bear look guilty of child neglect. I have had to be both mother and father to my children for many years. And there are a lot of them! With that responsibility comes many emotions. You want to cook the young man a nice meal and take him out back of the wood shed at the same time. My children are my heart, precious gems not merely to be handed over to the first suitor who comes along. I want them to be treasured after I let them go, as much as they have been while in my care.

So when Eliza knew, I had to know too.

I knew when I first met Andrew and we had an argument and he yelled at me.

It took him 6 days and 4 hours and 22 minutes to apologise, and secretly I admired him because I know he achieved what every single one of Eliza's previous boyfriends longed to do but never did, tried to put me in my place.

I knew when he drove 200 km an hour hoping I wouldn’t notice when Eliza was being air lifted out to Victoria in early labour and was trying to keep me distracted by asking me for parenting advice.

I knew when we spent Valentine’s Day and night together in a hotel room, he worried I would see him in his boxers and I worried I would snore.

I knew when he came to my house at midnight to fix my sliding glass door that was jammed open and I didn't have a single tool in the house. He worked for over an hour with a broken spatula handle. He didn't complain.

I knew when he gave me a tool kit for Christmas.

I knew when he took all my 4 dogs into his house when we had a flood and had to evacuate. I know now because he is going to go along with that number.

I knew because he asked Eliza to marry him even though his life will never be a box of chocolates. He knows living with Eliza that life is like a box of explosives and you never know when it is going to detonate, unless of course you visit her home unannounced and see her bedroom, her office, her laundry room and her kitchen. Now I know I should take some responsibility because I didn't raise my daughters to do that work, I raised them to hire people to do it for them, but as usual, Eliza made her own path.

Our family loves Andrew, the boys see him like a brother, Emma has a little crush I think and Emelia just wants to pluck his eyebrows at the first opportunity. She plans to get you drunk tonight by the way.
So when he showed up at my house at 10 o'clock at night all sweaty in his soccer uniform and asked for my blessing, I said ok. And I hugged him even though he was really sweaty and didn't even have the ring to show me, and I don't hug very often.

And I didn't phone Eliza and spill the beans. I wanted them to have that moment.

While everyone I am sure recognizes that opposites attract, and if Owen Wilson or Little Grey had been available we might not be here... and that if Andrew had his way we would be at a pig roast right now and he would be wearing shorts and sandals and if eliza had her way everything here would be pink and there would be an ice sculpture somewhere and Tom Jones would be making a guest appearance.

They share their hearts and their lives and their love with a little girl names Carys who is bar none the light of my life, the light of all our lives. She is their masterpiece, and we all knew the moment we saw her enter the world. She was not an accident, a mistake, an oops, she was a miracle.

And in about 24 years, or as Andrew insists in 45 years, maybe, they will know too. Since this is a Hollywood themed event I couldn’t finish this toast without quoting from one of Eliza’s favourite movies.

They have a little girl. An adorable little girl who looks up to you and adores you in a way you could never have imagined. They remember how her little hand used to fit inside theirs. Then comes the day when she wants to get her ears pierced, and wants you to drop her off a block before the movie theatre. . From that moment on you're in a constant panic. You worry about her meeting the wrong kind of guy, the kind of guy who only wants one thing, and you know exactly what that one thing is, because it's the same thing you wanted when you were their age. Then, you stop worrying about her meeting the wrong guy, and you worry about her meeting the right guy. That's the greatest fear of all, because, then you lose her. But if they are lucky like me, she will take you with her on her new journey away from you and you will know like I know that love conquers all.