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Written by 8020 teachers. Do not memorise it — take the structure and the way ideas are developed, then speak about your own life.
I'll describe my best friend's wedding, which took place last spring in her hometown, a small town a few hours outside the city where I live. It was a fairly traditional ceremony — held partly at her family's house in the morning for the tea ceremony, then a bigger reception in the evening at a rented hall with maybe two hundred guests, most of whom I didn't know, which felt strange at first given how close I was to the bride. People did all the usual things — toasts, a lot of eating, relatives cornering each other to catch up after years apart — but what I remember most is the tea ceremony itself, which was much quieter and more formal, just close family and a handful of us standing at the edges trying not to get emotional. I helped her get ready that morning, actually, which meant I saw the whole thing shift from nervous energy to this strange calm right before the ceremony started. Honestly I felt a mixture of things — genuinely happy for her, obviously, but also a bit unmoored, the way you do when someone you've known since you were a teenager moves into a completely different phase of life without you. I ended up crying during the toast, which I hadn't planned on at all, and I think that surprised me more than it surprised anyone else in the room.