The wedding of two TSU graduates. About a hundred guests, mostly their friends. After October (you know what I mean) there was a chair at the head table that nobody sat on. The bride said it was for a friend who could not come. Nobody asked who.
The music played, the toasts went, the cake was cut. But when the road toast came, the sözchü stopped and said, "and for the ones who are on the road and not yet home", and there was a pause. I let it be long. I did not make a joke. That is also the job.
My son Ermek, 11, took the microphone for the first time today at a family toi, his cousin's. He said the toast "to the road" last: "Let everyone get home safely, and let nobody drive." The room went quiet and then clapped, because it was true and because he was eleven.
I did not teach him this. He learned it in the taxis.
The last Saturday of October: 3 weddings, 2 birthdays, 1 baptism lunch. My calendar for next year is full. For 2024 half is full. I told my wife it is the best year of my life. She said "you were absent". True. She also said she loved it.
Ordo, 400 guests, the big chandelier, no rules, no masks, nobody in a corner. After two years of silence I came out at 6 and the hall roared before I opened my mouth. I forgot my joke. I said "welcome home" and the bride's grandmother stood up and cried and everyone stood.
Prices are up, of course. A toi for 400 is now 6,500 dollars and the hall wants half in advance. Nobody complained. Nobody wanted to go home.
Ordo at midnight. 400 people and one chandelier.Halls are open for 100 guests. The rule: tables of six, masks until the first toast. The bride and groom asked: "Can we still have the dance?" I said: "Yes, but with one person at a time." So at the first dance I told every guest to dance alone, wherever he was, at his table. A hundred people dancing alone in a hall. It was a very strange, very good thing.
There was one aunt who danced for two. She is my hero of 2021.