Mathew, Thank you for the honor and joy of being your Best Man today. Sarah, I am so happy for both of you, and am excited to be at this celebration for what I know is going to be a truly awesome marriage. And to both of your parents, let me offer congratulations on a day that is very special to you as well. Today Mathew and Sarah set out on the Yellow Brick Road: we really have no idea where the path will take them. But we have a million hopes and dreams for all that life will give them along the way. I have a famous story to rely on and some little gifts to offer to send you on your way.

In 1939 the now classic film The Wizard of Oz appeared and it has captured people’s hearts and imaginations ever since. The main characters in this story needed and wanted things they thought to ask of the Wonderful Wizard in the emerald city. The great lesson of the story is that everything the Scarecrow, Lion, Tin Man and Dorothy needed most they gained by following the Yellow Brick Road. And when they arrived at their destination, their adventure, their friendship and loyalty and their endurance had given them their greatest wishes. And what did they need but a brain, a heart, courage, and to get home to where they belonged?

These, then, are my hopes and dreams for you: I hope that your adventure, your friendship and loyalty and your endurance will bring the fulfillment of all that you need and all that you wish. I dream that you will use your brains, your common sense and that you will be granted wisdom to deal with everything the future holds for you. I hope that you will always have courage – wherever the road takes you, whatever obstacles you meet. I dream that your hearts will remain full of love and always be given in commitment to each other. And I hope that you will always be at home with each other, and that your home will always be a place of peace, comfort and goodness for you, for your family and for your friends. Since the Wizard of Oz said, “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.” The testimony we all bring you this day is that you have very, very wonderful hearts.

Here are three tokens of my hopes and dreams for you. First is a small tin of oil, and a can of WD-40, which is even more useful. I remember that in the story, the Tin Man was rusted and stuck, unable to move. Sometimes our lives can get stuck, and sometimes finding the way to our hearts seems to shut down. These little tokens hold my hopes that you will always find the ways to keep moving forward, the ways to stay flexible and open, and the ways to open your hearts.
Second, here is a prayer I have had framed for you. It is often said at groups like AA, and sometimes it seems like a cliché. But it is actually really important, and it goes for both the Lion who needs courage and the Scarecrow who needs a brain, or wisdom:
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
The courage to change the things we can,
And the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

And finally, as you establish your home as a married couple, here is a prism to hang in a window where it will cast rainbows all around you. The paradox is that it will make rainbows when the sun is shining brightly, yet they will remind you that clouds and rain and storms can bring rainbows, colors, renewal and hope, too. Whether life brings light or clouds, brightness or storms, my dream for you is that there will always be signs of peace and glory and tastes of hope and blessing. So I offer you the lyrics of a song The Wizard of Oz made famous: E.Y. Harburg wrote these words set to the ballad tune by Harold Arlen and sung, of course, by Judy Garland –

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a place that I heard of
Once in a lullabye

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dream that you dare to dream
Really does come true

(Raise champagne glass for toast) So, then … So, now … Here’s to you both … Here’s to your marriage … Here’s to your journey. May all the dreams you dare to dream really come true. I love you both and wish you all the very, very best.