My little sister got married this past weekend and my heart is so full. Her driving away at the end of the night was a very bittersweet moment for me. I spent the entire day being there for her, I helped her get into her dress and helped her with her shoes. I stood by her side in the church serving as her maid of honor. For so long it’s always been my sister and I. We’ve lived together almost our entire lives. Anytime a boyfriend or friend hurt her, I was always there to pick her up and turn the memory into a positive one. So by the end of the evening and preparing for the send off, I was right there at the front hugging her and not wanting to let go. It was the first time that entire day I actually started crying because I knew it would no longer would be just Tatum and Sarah, it would be Tatum, Sarah and the husbands.

And so, I thought it would be appropriate to save my maid of honor speech here, for whenever I want to go back and relive the night, it will always be here.

When it came time to think about sharing a story or memory, it’s a little hard to pick one because Tatum and I have been through so much together…like every good, bad and embarrassing memory, Tatum’s been a part of it. For those of you who don’t know us, I’m Tatum’s older sister even though she’s mistaken as the older sister all the time because I’m shorter. I’m almost two years older than her which means I have lived with my sister practically my entire life. We shared a room half of my childhood, we lived across the hallway from each other during high school and then there was college. I was so excited to go to college, I was going to school 2000 miles away in the middle of nowhere Indiana. I was excited to be experiencing some freedom and independence, like no one is going to follow me to an all girls catholic college in Northwest Indiana. Two years later, who followed me there. Not only did she follow me to Saint Mary’s, she had convinced the school and my parents that she was not going to live with a stranger, she was going to live with me. And so we did.

When I graduated college, my sister accepted an internship in Manhattan, she came to me and said, Sarah I don’t want to live alone in New York, can you live with me, and I did. When I eventually moved back to CA, I started grad school, work and was living on my own and a few years later, Tatum followed. I don’t think Tatum even lived with my parents for a year before she came to me and a said, “Sarah I can’t live with mom and dad anymore, can we please live together.” I was in my early thirties and still living with my sister. Tatum pretty much convinced me we were going to live with each other ‘til we were 89 years old.

Even when my now husband proposed to me and we talked about moving in, I told him, I hope you’re prepared to deal with my sister because she is going to convince you that the three of us will be living together. When she shared the news, my sister was like “That’s great, David you can just move right in and the three of us can live together.” Obviously, that didn’t happen, but through our twenties and thirties, our relationship only grew stronger. Tatum and I, we’re more than just sisters, we’re best friends. We’ve always been there for each other, anytime one us of needed the other, we’ve always had each other’s back. Like on my 21st birthday when I called her and told that I wouldn’t be back until morning because I was waiting for AAA to pull my car out of a twenty foot ditched packed in two feet of snow. We can just tell that one to mom and dad in five years.

I didn’t know Anthony in high school, but I knew of him. He was on the high school basketball team with a few of my guy friends. Over these last eight years, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Anthony and I can say without any hesitation that he’s one of the most genuine, caring and loving people I’ve ever met. I knew very early on in your and Tatum’s relationship, that you were the one. Tatum acted so differently around you, she no longer wanted to hang out with just me. It was clear from the very start that you’d be an important part of our family. I love you and I’m so excited to be gaining a brother.