How To Write Your Wedding Speech

Struggling to write your wedding speech? Can’t think of the right words to say or how to get started? Don’t worry, take a deep breath, get yourself a brew and a pen and paper because you’re in exactly the right place.
We promise* that by the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll know how to write your wedding speech.

Calm? Composed? Then let’s start at the beginning…

When it comes to writing wedding speeches (or indeed writing anything) these are the best words of advice you’ll ever get (from James Thurber apparently):

Don’t get it right, get it written

The first draft is just about finishing it. Don’t worry if there are mistakes, there will be, but you’ll correct them later. The key is to get a rough draft done. So repeat with me:

Don’t get it right, get it written

It’s amazing but the age-old question of wedding speech nerves disappear when you’re sitting on a great speech that you’re happy with and all of that starts by simply writing the thing in rough. After that you practice it, run it past people and re-write it until it’s perfect. Then you’re confident and you even enjoy delivering it.

Some basic pointers

• You should aim for your speech to be under ten minutes and ideally last between five and eight minutes. Even if you’re a brilliant speaker 15 mins. is the absolute maximum.
• Before the big day have a meeting with all the speakers to discuss who’s saying what and who is introducing you.
• If possible, practice with the mics you’ll use and rehearse projecting your voice into the room. It really helps to see the room you’ll be speaking in, so you can imagine yourself there when you’re practicing.
• See if the venue has someone who will act as an Master of Ceremonies, or if there will be an MC. If not decide who will introduce the other speakers – it’s often the best man.

Classic wedding speech formats

Let’s look at the classic format for each of the speeches, in the order they occur in. Ultimately, you can take these and flesh out the points and you’ll have a perfectly decent speech (told you this article was good).

Father of the bride speech – at a glance

-          Welcome guests and thank them for coming
-          Welcome new son-in-law and his parents
-          Talk about your daughter and say how you feel
-          Toast bride and groom.

Groom speech – at a glance

-          Thank father of the bride for his speech
-          Thank all relevant people (consult bride to avoid missing people). These are generally,

1. New inlaws (possibly for paying)
2. Your parents
3. Guests for attending and for presents
4. People who have helped with the wedding preparations (venue, florists, etc)

-          The most essential thing is to talk honestly about how you feel about your wife, your relationship and your future.
-          Toast bridesmaids
-          (optional) Pre-empt best man speech

Best man speech – at a glance

-          Introduce yourself, thank previous speakers
-          Talk about the groom (and the bride if you know her) – do this humorously but not destructively
-          Give an outsiders perspective on the couple’s relationship
-          Toast the bride and groom
-          Possibly read correspondence or hand back over to the MC

So what content do you put in your speech and where do you get it?

You might think that your mind is completely blank but once you’ve got to grips with the wedding speech etiquette, you’ll at least have a rough idea of your content. Then it’s a case of doing some research and starting to shape the material.

The more people you can get to help with your speech the better it will be.

• If you’re a father of the bride, get your wife and other children involved. You could even ask the bride what she’d like you to say (you don’t have to follow her advice obviously).
• If you’re a groom speak to your fiancé about who needs to be thanked, ask her mates what sort of things they’d mention – we’ve even asked brides what they want to hear in your grooms speech.
• As the best man you will probably have two or three good stories that demonstrate what sort of bloke the groom is. But once you speak to other people connected to him you could end up with 10 or 11 good stories to choose from

Especially for the best man’s speech don’t forget to include your fellow stags (pass a notebook round at the stag-do, or post stag emails), colleagues from his work, his parents and brothers and sisters, notable people from other places in his life such as people on the same sports teams or in the same societies. One person who best men often forget to talk to is the bride.

Good questions to ask these people are: what classic stories can you tell me about him? How would you sum up the groom? Has he ever said anything particularly funny? What is he well-known for? What makes him angry? Do they have any funny photos or material that they could send to you connected to the groom?
The other reason to speak to the bride is because not only will she have good material, she will also be able to fill you in on the important biographical information about their relationship that you might not know. You should find out where they met, how they became a couple, what sort of things they enjoy doing (without getting graphical!) and how the groom proposed – whether he made a mess of it or if he was sweet about it.

An essential point on content

The most important thing for all of the speeches is that you should remember when it comes to gathering material is to ask yourself this very simple question: what do you want to say? This is the point in the day when you get to express your thoughts and feelings to everyone there. Ok, so maybe that’s a bit nerve-wracking but it’s also a tremendous privilege to be able to have that sort of opportunity, so use it – say something from the heart that people will remember.

It might sound obvious but often we often get caught up in what we’re supposed to say and forget that this is their chance to tell their best friend, wife, or daughter what they think of them. If the groom is a mate who has always been there for you then this is the point to say so. If you couldn’t be prouder of your daughter – declare it. If you’re thrilled to be married to this beautiful woman, speak now! This honest statement of how you feel is the sort of thing that can make for the most effective toasts and it’s what people will remember.

Once you’ve got your material

You should then consider the format of the speech. You might want to do something very traditional (introduction, few stories, toast) like the examples at the beginning, or you could want to do something more quirky. Either is fine, don’t forget though that the essence of a beginning, a middle and an end has worked as a structure for all of recorded history, so it will work for you too.

A word of warning. If you’re going quirky – plan it properly. If you have a lot of photos and videos that you want to use then you need to prepare well in advance. For instance you need to make sure that the venue you are going to has the correct audio-visual equipment for you to use.

Try and simplify things where possible – print out the photos onto a sheet of paper which you can distribute to the tables rather than projecting them. If you are using video then you need at least one rehearsal in the venue before the big day, to make sure you know how loud the video is, how to control the equipment and so on.

Once you have your material the next step is to sift through it and select the very best stories, the finest sentiments and put them in an order. For some inspiration take a look at some of our wedding speech templates on the forum.

How to present your speech

• When writing your speech use a 12 point Arial font, which is formatted to have 1.5 line spacing as this is one of the easiest fonts to read when stood up.
• If you do this each page when read out should last approximately one and a half minutes.
• If you’d rather write your speech onto cue cards then that’s fine but it’s better to have a copy of the speech with you written in full on the day just in case your mind goes blank.
• Don’t forget, your sweat-stained, note-covered speech makes a really nice keepsake/present. If you’re the best man or father of the bride why not offer to frame all the speeches and, presto, you’ve got a simple, but incredibly thoughtful gift.

Don’t forget – the classic mistake people make is to try and write the perfect speech at the beginning, don’t. Just complete it and then refine it. It’s so much easier to re-write something than it is to write it. Good luck.