Wedding Speech 4U

Best best man speeches use all the techniques of writing a great speech. Best best man speeches or really any of the wedding speeches can not be done off of the cuff. There needs to be planning and preparation.

Where to start? Since you are the best man, you are probably also the best friend or at least very close to the groom. Your job as the best man speech is to talk about the groom and a little about the bride.

Begin by writing down a couple of stories that you can recall about the groom. If you were there and experienced the stories, so much the better as you can then speak from personal experience. In the public speaking game “Talking tells, Stories Sell.” Everyone loves to hear stories and if you know a couple few have ever heard, even better.

Avoid using canned jokes, unless you can personalize the joke. Instead of,”Two dudes went into a bar,” try “John(insert groom’s name here) and I went into a bar.” This will draw people in and want to hear the joke.

It is best also not to begin with a joke. Make sure that you acknowledge the audience somewhere near the beginning. If you can say a few words first and the acknowledge them, you will really set yourself up as looking professional. Something like “John and I have been friends since grade 5 in school, and Ladies and Gentlemen, do I have some stories to share with you.” This works to set up the rest of the speech and your audience is now thinking “Let’s hear those stories.”

As for the stories, it is nice and fun to tell stories that may be a little embarrassing to your groom friend, but not something that is so revealing that he and the audience would be embarrassed to the point of it being beyond good taste or even worse, ruining a good wedding and your friendship.

Now you have your stories, how to lay them out? Try to keep everything in 3′s, so use 3 stories. Aim to keep your speech under 10 minutes, but over 4 minutes.

A good lay out for your speech is:

-Intro: Warm up your audience to the speech.

-Story number 1

-Story number 2

-Story number 3

-Close

-Toast to the bride

Story number 3 is a good time to bring the bride into the picture. A cute story about how the bride and groom met, how you met the bride, or something funny that happened to them in the course of their relationship leading to the wedding day

Close by showing how much you care for your friend and his wife. Be sincere. If you don’t like his wife, then leave her out but add that you wish for their happiness. Then add the toast.

Once your wedding speech is written, you need to practice. Practice out loud. If you can, record the speech. Once you listen to it, you will be able to easily hear where you need to make changes. Find someone you can practice in front of and get feedback from. This will help you become natural and at ease with what you need to say and do to deliver one of the Best Best Man Speeches ever.