What A Top Notch Wedding Speech Is Like
If you ever get a request to make a wedding speech at someone’s wedding, don’t ever allow yourself to think that it doesn’t matter if you flop. Unfortunately, everyone has been to those weddings when someone gave an excruciatingly miserable speech and nobody wants to be in that person’s position.
Imagine attending a wedding where an inebriated maid of honor rattled off the names of the most embarrassing men that the bride had once gone out on dates with. Envision sitting through the longest thirty minutes of rambling because the groomsman had not prepared a wedding speech. These were definitely intolerable!
It is quite possible to avoid the horrifying experience of giving lousy speech because while each speech may be unique, the fact remains that all wedding speeches have common elements and regardless of how comfortable you are with making speeches, there are some tricks to make your speech and your delivery truly awesome. Here are some tips to guarantee that your speech will be a roaring success.
1. Preparation trumps inspiration. No matter how inspired we are in the privacy of our bathrooms when we deliver a song, it doesn’t matter because there was no audience to please. Everything becomes different when you have over a hundred guests listening during your brother’s wedding. So, be ready with your speech, make your notes, and don’t be ashamed to have your notecards on hand. It is delusional to think you can just breeze through a speech without cues of any kind. Remember that during weddings, you have wine flowing freely, families in attendance, emotions running high – all the factors that can make even experienced speechmaker forget what he or she had wanted to say.
2. Do not underestimate the power of a good laugh. People will enjoy your speech if you can make them laugh. Begin with appropriate humor to catch your audience’s attention. Once they start laughing with you, they will probably listen to you for your entire speech. Remember though that the new couple’s grandparents might be there so skip lewd or green jokes.
3. Get them teary-eyed. After making your listeners cry, show them a serious, caring side. Wedding speeches should allow guests to go through a whole range of responses from laughter to nostalgia to tears. After the jokes are done, allow your listeners to reflect on how important the occasion is. This is where you get to ask profound questions on love, commitment and what does this mean for the bride and the groom? It would also help to quote a poem or a song at this point.
4. Some things are better left unsaid. People who have nothing good to say should inhibit themselves from giving speeches. If you have been asked to give a wedding toast, you are expected to say something nice about the couple and their relationship. Don’t forget to mention a positive quality that the bride and groom have – this is as obligatory as thanking your spouse when you accept an Oscar award.
5. Anything more than five minutes and two drinks is too much. Make sure you don’t have more than two drinks before giving you five-minute toast. The five-minutes-and-two-drink cap will help keep you on track and prevent you from succumbing to minor frailties like being wasted and going on and on and on. You feel nice and warm from two drinks and you stick to a five minute toast – long enough to expound on things but not long enough to make your listeners fall asleep. Ask someone to be your timekeeper and give you a discreet signal when it is time to wrap things up.
Are you up to making a wedding speech for someone close and you wanted to get the audience hanging for every word? These five tips should be able to let you cross that challenge easily.
