​On October 24th, I officiated Hannah and Natan’s wedding ceremony at 400 North Ervay in Dallas, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

What can we learn from Hannah and Natan? I think their story teaches us about growth, patience, and the kind of love that matures into a lifelong partnership.

Now, Hannah admits that when she first started figuring out what a real relationship should look like, she didn’t have the best examples. On the one hand, there were movie couples—who solve every argument in 90 minutes with a musical montage. On the other hand, there were real-life couples who sometimes looked more like roommates with a joint checking account. So when she and Natan started dating, she was still trying to figure it all out. And how did Natan respond? In her words, “He continually showed me patience and love, and was a true partner while I was figuring things out.” Gentlemen, please note: the bar has now been set.

Over nearly seven years, Hannah says, “Natan continues to be an amazing partner. He is supportive, keeps me grounded and calm, and is who I want to spend my life with. He is continually putting our relationship first, helping me grow as a person, and just fun to be around. When I think of my future, he has always been a part of it.” That’s the good stuff—when you literally cannot picture your future without the other person, you know you’ve found your person.

And then there’s Natan. He says he can pinpoint the exact moment he realized Hannah was “the one.” He was on a plane scrolling through his photo album and suddenly thought, “Hannah is the most kind, caring, and loving person I’ve ever known… During that flight, I knew there was no other person for me.” Most of us just hope for a free Diet Coke and pretzels on a flight—Natan walked off with a revelation. Talk about upgrades.

From there, their love only deepened. They built a life together through laughter, growth, and challenges. Hannah says of Natan, “I know that he will be a great parent one day, and will be the person I want to raise a family with. My hope for us is that we will have a relationship that our children will look up to.” And Natan, in turn, says, “We have years of laughter, good times, bad times, and growth shared. Hannah is the most kind, caring, and loving person I’ve ever known. She is the person I want to build a life with.”

So, what can we learn from Hannah and Natan? That love is not about being perfect, or having all the answers, or solving everything in 90 minutes with a soundtrack. It’s about patience, resilience, humor, and choosing each other again and again. It’s about building the kind of bond that shows the world what real love looks like.

​On October 18th, I officiated Meredith and Jaime’s wedding ceremony at the Las Colinas Country Club in Irving, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

When people ask Jaime and Meredith how they met, they might expect some grand story. Instead, it begins with something almost laughably small: a hip bump. They were standing in line, waiting for a drink, shoulder to shoulder. Meredith gave Jaime a playful little nudge with her hip. Nothing dramatic, no Hollywood soundtrack — just a bump.

Now, at the time, neither of them could have guessed it. But here’s the thing about a hip bump: it’s lighthearted, it’s spontaneous, it’s fun. And at the same time, it’s a little risky. You knock someone slightly off balance, trusting that they’ll steady themselves — maybe even steady you. In that moment, Meredith set the tone for everything that came next.

Because isn’t that marriage? You bump into each other. You knock each other a little sideways now and then. Sometimes you do it playfully, sometimes accidentally. But the real magic — the thing that makes it work — is that you find your balance together. You laugh, you adjust, you lean on each other.

And that’s exactly who Jaime and Meredith are. Jaime says simply but beautifully, “I love her, she fills my heart and I fill hers. We are yin and yang, sometimes ding and dong.” And Meredith, in her wonderfully candid way, says, “He has this strength, this gentleness, kindness, love never felt before. I am safe with him. We are each other’s best friends.”

They’ve both lived full lives before this moment, with challenges, lessons, and growth. Meredith writes, “He has taught me to ‘let things go,’ as uptight type-A me. He is the first man that I have been completely willing to share and compromise with.” That’s not a small statement — that’s the heart of building a real partnership.

Jaime, meanwhile, carries the steady lessons of his parents: to care for each other, to love deeply, to be there for family. He has lived those values with his brother, with his daughter Golden, and now — joyfully — with Meredith.

So, yes, their story begins with a bump. But it continues with something stronger: the daily choice to laugh together, to lean on each other, to make space for each other’s quirks, to bring patience when one of them is tired or stubborn, to extend kindness when the world feels heavy.

And so, our blessing for them today is this: may you always keep bumping into each other — sometimes playfully, sometimes accidentally — but always with the trust that you’ll laugh, steady yourselves, and find your balance together.

​On October 11th, I officiated Alex and Ryan’s wedding ceremony at The Mansion (TFWC) in Austin, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

Ryan and Alex first met in 2018 on the Jew-ishly named Coffee Meets Bagel, back when both were students at Texas A&M. The first round didn’t quite take. Alex admits, “We went on a few dates, some of which I truthfully did not remember until we reconnected and Ryan had to fill in the blanks for me.” 

One date she does remember, though, was at Napa Flats. Ryan spent the evening talking about a passion project — a custom beer pong table he was building AND coding. Alex says, “I remember being so impressed with his skills and his knowledge… He was so passionate about it, I was really in awe.”

But timing is everything. Alex wasn’t in the right place for a relationship then, so she broke it off. Not before “borrowing” Ryan’s graphing calculator — which he still insists was theft, and which remains Exhibit A in his case against her.

Two years later, in Dallas, the timing WAS right. This time it was the vaguely Yiddish sounding Hinge, and this time everything clicked. Ryan describes it simply: “Whether we’re actively doing something or just spending time in the same room, I’m always happy. We might be building Legos, gaming, watching a movie, or simply doing our own thing, like her reading while I play video games, and it always feels like time well spent.”

Alex says, “Ryan makes me want to be the best person I can be, in every way. He is the best communicator; he is always willing to have an open and honest conversation with me. He is the smartest person I know; I learn new things from him every single day.”

Ryan admits he had some hesitation at first — not because of Alex, but because she was his first serious relationship and he wanted to make such a big decision with intention. But over time, he realized: “Being with her makes life better. Not just more fun, but more grounded and fuller. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

And when it came time to propose, Ryan went all in. Nine months of quasi military planning, changing his daily wardrobe for months so dressing up fancy wouldn’t tip her off, a custom ring, family and friends secretly flown to Disney World, and a ride photo on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure with signs behind them reading “Will you marry me?” It wasn’t just a proposal — it was a story, perfectly tuned to Alex’s love of The Princess and the Frog, and her favorite princess, Tiana, who shows that you can work hard, achieve your dreams, AND find love.

And really, that’s what we learn from Ryan and Alex. Love is about timing, yes, but also about intention. It’s about the joy of nerdy passions, from Star Wars to cats named Azula. And most of all, it’s about finding the person who makes life not just more fun, but more grounded, fuller, and, as Alex puts it, the person you “cannot picture a better life with.”