Writing a good speech  

I’ve heard a lot of speeches at Weddings that have had the crowds in stitches, sometimes in tears and sometimes… puzzled. In fact it was in writing my own best man speech for a family member’s Wedding, that I learnt a valuable lesson about speech writing. Here are my top tips.  

Who is your audience

Firstly, think about who your audience is, are they just family of the bride and groom or are they close friends that know you and are already familiar with your sense of humour? If you’re not sure who the guests are, the first thing to do is to find out by asking the bride and groom for a copy of the guest list.  

What shouldn’t be in the speech

Once you’ve determined your audience, you need to think about what they know about the bride and groom, there may be a private joke that for example only you, the groom and a very few close friends know about, which might be lost or confusing to the other guests and so is probably not worth mentioning. Making a joke at the bride or groom’s expense may initially seem funny, but think long and hard and perhaps even check with them before you write it in to your speech. You don’t want to start an argument between them or even cause upset between their family or friends. Generally, it’s best to keep things clean. It can often be far funnier to imply something, than it is to go into graphic detail. Let the audiences’ imagination do the rest. Do not assume, that simply because you’re telling a joke that people will laugh. Some people are funny and their jokes are always received warmly, however not everyone has the same sense of humour. If you do intend to include jokes, test them out on a variety of different people with different personalities before you write them in to the speech and ask for their feedback.

What should be in the speech

Often speeches are quite light hearted and anecdotal. It can be difficult to change the pace of this by proposing a more serious toast to the bride and groom. To avoid this sudden change feeling unnatural, you could propose the toast at the beginning of the speech, or if you’re doing it at the end, wait until everyone has stopped laughing etc... and the room is settled. Your speech is your opportunity to thank the guests for attending and supporting the bride and groom and to offer your own congratulations to their happy occasion. So think carefully about everything you want to say and if it’s important, say it with the sincerity it deserves.

Writing the speech

Using bullet points of the main themes you want to say rather than writing everything down, will help you to avoid looking down at a piece of paper and reading it verbatim. Make sure the order is right, so that it flows naturally and you don’t repeat yourself. If possible type it up rather than handwriting in a large and clear font to make it easier to glance at and spot the key words. Remember, if you usually need glasses to read, make sure you have these to hand!

Practicing the speech

It’s really important to rehearse the speech as much as you can, particularly in front of a small audience such as one or two friends or family or better still a perfect stranger! This will give them the opportunity to make suggestions to improve the speech and generally give you feedback about your performance. It will also help alleviate any anxiety you might be having about public speaking and give you confidence in delivery the speech without showing your nerves.

Finally, you may be tempted to have a few drinks before the speech, trust me this is not always a good idea. I have video which proves it! By all means have one or two, but try to be reasonably sober and have your wits about you when doing the speech itself, you can always drink more afterwards!

By Ricardo Di Donato - January 2010