Trama

Everyone prepares for the Gellers' 35th wedding anniversary in Long Island; Monica struggles to prepare the perfect toast; Phoebe invites her new boyfriend Parker.

Everyone is preparing for the 35th wedding anniversary of Jack and Judy Geller. For this event, Monica wants to make the toast instead of Ross, and she's considering talking about the subject of Chi-Chi, the late family dog. Phoebe's date is an extremely enthusiast man, Parker, who likes to make an exuberant fuss about everything. He starts with Rachel, telling her about the "miracle of birth." At the party, Ross and Rachel are stunned that his parents have told everyone that they've gotten married, and want them to maintain the pretense for the guests. Everyone starts to make jokes about Parker and his ridiculously effusive comments about the freeway, the city and how he takes a "mental picture" of happy moments. Phoebe hears their jokes and gets angry, arguing that she has never criticized their dates, and that Parker's enthusiastically way of seeing life isn't all bad. But eventually she realizes that Parker indeed makes a big fuss over everything: the plates on the buffet, the food, the oysters, the hall. Ross and Rachel try to handle the guests' congratulations in a low-key manner, but when people start giving them cash gifts, they feel obliged to invent outlandish details about their wedding and Ross' proposal. Joey tries to convince Phoebe that there's nothing wrong about Parker, and encourages her to have a good time with him. Later, Monica's toast is a big mess, because she starts to talk about Chi-Chi and her dead grandmother. Jack and Judy ask Ross to say some words - which are very touching as always, making Monica feels frustrated. Rachel confesses to Ross that she found his story about his proposal deeply moving, and he admits that it was how he had long imagined proposing to her. At home, Phoebe tells Parker that he's like "Santa Claus with Prozac". They have a fight and break up, but excited Parker finishes by asking "Isn't this the greatest fight that you ever had?"—Alejandro Frias

It's Ross & Monica's parents' 35th wedding anniversary, and Monica is very excited to be giving the speech at this year's celebration. Usually, Ross gives a very moving speech and makes everyone cry. Monica's attempts at writing a moving speech get pretty far-fetched, bringing up dead relatives and pets (Their dog Chi-Chi died when Monica was in High school) to get a few tears. This doesn't work very well. Phoebe has decided that "fate" has brought her to her new boyfriend, Parker. He is a constantly cheerful, talkative, energetic and enthusiastic person with a wacky personality and a strange and annoying habit of making a big fuss of everything, even the most trivial things (he calls Long Island Expressway a concrete miracle)...and his habit of doing this irritates the friends greatly. But Phoebe stands up for Parker and says that their own collective dating record is the who's who of human crap.

At the anniversary party, Parker is driving everyone crazy with his ridiculously over-the-top compliments on absolutely everything. Phoebe catches the others making fun of Parker and gets upset, but then realizes that he is driving her crazy as well. Monica & Ross's parents also tell Rachel & Ross that since they are having a child out of wedlock, they've actually told all of their friends that they got married. They don't want to pretend, but when several people give them checks as wedding gifts, they play along. When guests ask for details about the proposal and wedding, they actually end up having a lot of fun telling others about their fantasy day, with Rachel creating various extravagant details while Ross tells a touching story about proposing to her in the planetarium where they had their first date, making it seem like there is some spark left between them.

Monica gives the anniversary toast and it's a total dud. She gets desperate and brings up Terms of Endearment and neglected Romanian children in an attempt to get her parents to become emotional and cry, but her speech eventually gets so ridiculous that no-one can feel anything except bewilderment after hearing it, not even the starry-eyed Parker. Ross then gets up and gives a brief two-sentence toast stating that he and Rachel would consider themselves lucky to be half as happy as Jack and Judy (Christina Pickles) in thirty-five years, which makes his parents cry. Monica is frustrated.

Parker breaks up with Phoebe for angrily telling him, after getting fed up with his constant enthusiasm, that she wants him to be "much less happy." After arguing with her, Parker angrily storms out of the room...and then returns to compliment the argument. Back at their apartment, Ross and Rachel continue to debate some details of their fictional marriage, with Rachel being touched when she learns that Ross's story about his proposal to her was the one he actually planned to use when they were going out, saying "it would be something she'd find hard to have said no to."

At the end of the episode, a sympathetic Ross comforts an upset Monica, assuring her that he thought her speech was great, and he doesn't understand why nobody cried, also claiming that their late grandmother would have loved it, and that she was there in spirit. This makes Monica cry, and then say "Oh good God, Ross! How the hell do you do it?"