It usually falls to the father of the bride to make the first speech of the wedding. Traditionally it was then up to the groom to respond by making a speech on behalf of himself and his new wife. It is not uncommon nowadays for the new wife to want to make her own speech.
If the groom makes his speech on behalf of both marriage partners he should conclude his speech by handing over to the best man. However the groom should instead introduce the bride’s speech if she intends to make one, and then the bride should finish by handing over to the best man.
Grooms speeches are vitally important to the success of the day, but they are the most difficult to get right. You need to thank everyone involved in the wedding; you daren’t miss anyone out or give anyone too much prominence above others. You need to make everyone feel equally special.
On the other hand you need to make it sound as if you are not just reading out a shopping list. You need to be sincere and humorous at the same time, and this is a delicate balancing act that can be very difficult to get just right.
Now you appreciate the scale of the challenge let’s briefly take a step back into reality. Speaking in front of a large and diverse audience is a daunting task, and demands a certain amount of planning and preparation. However in the background you also have a little thing like a wedding to organize!
There is so much other stuff to organize that writing the grooms speech tends to get left until the last minute. You know that it needs doing, but there are so many other more pressing things that end up taking priority. At some point a nagging voice in the back of your head tells you that you cannot put it off for much longer, and you begin to contemplate writing your speech.
There then follows rabid use of the search engines looking for examples of bride and groom speeches that are good enough to be hacked together into some sort of speech. However, the end result tends to be a mish mash of writing styles, along with some very formulaic, dated, and cliché ridden content.
Unfortunately your guests will have heard a version of this same speech many times before, and not long into your speech you will notice them shuffling in their seats and talking amongst themselves. This then forces you to rush the speech and miss out large chunks in an effort to finish quicker and spare yourself the embarrassment.
You don’t want this to happen to you. You have invested too much time and effort to spoil your wedding day, and thereby incurring the wrath of your new wife, by cutting corners on the most important speech of your life.
What you need is a good source of professionally written speeches and toasts that you can amend to suit your circumstances, thereby giving you a unique and quality speech that will be received with enthusiastic praise by your family and friends. Not forgetting the gratitude from an admiring bride.
