Wedding Speech - Home | Public Speaking Advice | Wedding Toast Articles
 
Best Man | Bride | Groom | Maid Of Honor | Father Of The Bride | Mother Of The Bride | Other Toasts

Writing A Best Man Speech Or Toast

In this article we will give you some tips and advice for preparing a best man’s speech.

So let’s get started:

The first point we want to mention is that it’s good to use a lot of humor in the best man’s speech. This speech is the one that people are usually expecting to be funny. This is a great opportunity to have a lot of fun.

Hopefully, if you’re a confident person when it comes to public speaking, you’ll love giving the best man’s speech, and you can have fun with all the different humor you can use.

But if you’re the kind of person who panics over doing the speech… don’t worry yourself too much over it, because people aren’t expecting the humor of a stand up comedian. And it’s usually much easier to make people laugh at a wedding than you would think.

Need help with your best man speech?

We recommend Wedding Speech 4 U for 20 professionally written best man speech templates, plus a step-by-step guide for creating your very own best man speech. To find out more, click here.

If you’re the best man, you may also be the Master of Ceremonies… in which case, you’ll already have lost some of the initial nerves over speaking in front of everyone as you would have been doing it all day.

Also, it can take a lot of tact to deliver a good best man’s speech. By all means, you want to be funny… but you also need to consider the grooms feelings! So don’t go over board. And try not to let the speech drag on too long, even if it’s going really well! It’s better to leave people wanting more, than wishing it would end.

Here are a few ideas you may like to use for your best man speech.

If you’re not the Master of Ceremonies, you may like to thank the MC for introducing your speech. This is an easy way to get started.

The next step is to thank the groom for the honor of being their best man. You may also like to respond to any kind comments about you or the bridesmaids in any of the speeches made before yours. This is your chance to reply to these comments, on behalf of the bridesmaids, too.

In a traditional wedding, the bride and groom will have given gifts to the groom and the bridesmaids. It’s a nice gesture to thank the bride and groom for these gifts publicly… and also, this is a great way to crack the first joke by saying something like “the gifts aren’t going to stop me making fun of the groom”.

This will usually get a laugh, which will also ease your nerves and get the ball rolling.

Here is where the real best man’s speech begins. Maybe you could kick it off with a few funny stories about the groom. If you’ve known the groom for awhile, don’t be afraid of searching the past for some funny stories. Or maybe you can find a funny story in the wedding preparations, or even the stag night. Remember to keep it clean.

To strike a balance you may like to share a story about the bride as well, unless one of the bridesmaids is also making a speech, in which case it may be best to leave this step out to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes and spoiling someone else’s story.

You may like to balance out the humorous stories with something a little more sentimental and touching. It is nice to show your friendship as well as get the laughs. Be careful not to make everything into humor.

Something you may like to do is read out any cards or messages from people who couldn’t make it, or for any other reason there may be a card to read out. This will be up to you.

As you get closer to the end of your speech, you may want to thank the groom for any kind comments made about you or the bridesmaids, as well as wish the bride and groom happiness for the future.

If there is no Master of Ceremonies, a good way to end your speech is to announce the cutting of the cake… and ask all the guests to raise their glasses in a toast to the newly weds. This will be planned beforehand, however.

A quick final tip for you: Steer clear from talking about the grooms past relationships. This can cause problems if you do… unless you know for sure it will go down well! Check with the bride first. In most cases, it’s wise to stay away from this, though. Even if you do have a really good story.