Best Man speeches are often judged by their humor, their wit and the mixture of loving and funny stories that they contain. Another important element is the delivery of the speech, great content is one thing but a mundane speaker will find it difficult to bond with the wedding guests.
As Best Man your jokes need to be funny, your stories heartfelt and your toast uplifting, you also need to ensure you speak for the right amount of time and that you have omitted nobody from the speech. As anyone who has ever given a Best Man speech before will confirm, they are not an easy to master and with that in mind over the next 4 weeks I will be counting down the Top 10 tips for Best Man speeches. We begin our countdown with numbers 10 to 8, in our quest to help you create funny Best Man speeches that will provide memories of a lifetime.
Best Man Speeches Tip Number 10
Create an outline.
Like a good book your speech needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, unstructured speeches that don’t flow in a smooth manner will only end-up confusing the wedding guests, so the importance of working from an outline when creating your speech is essential. From your perspective, once you have your outline plotted, you will find your creative juices begin to flow and the speech-writing process will become less daunting. Your outline should contain some of the following elements;
1) opening lines / intro.
2) welcome everyone.
3) people to thank (here express gratitude to those who have made special efforts in the planning of the wedding).
4) people to praise (people to praise include the Bride, the Bridesmaids, the Bride and Groom’s parents, along with the Groom).
5) short story about the Groom (can be funny or embarrassing just ensure there is nothing too offensive).
6) story about the Groom as a friend.
7) heartfelt story about the Bride and what makes her a special person.
8) loving story about the Bride and Groom.
9) congratulatory toast to end your speech.
Short Best Man jokes and wedding one-liners should also be included at various intervals within your speech.
Best Man Speeches Tip Number 9
Get off to a confident start.
It is normal to feel apprehensive about giving a speech in public particularly a Best Man speech where a lot is expected of you. A great way to build confidence is to begin your speech without referring to your notes whilst smiling and looking directly at the wedding guests. Building a rapport is important and direct eye-contact and a smile will help you attain this. It is unrealistic to expect to deliver your whole speech without referring to your notes however, so do have your cue cards with you, but make sure you have your opening lines memorized to help you engage the audience from the start.
You want to deliver a speech that appeals to everyone so if you are telling a funny story about the Groom and your speech includes a handful of funny jokes then balance your speech out by opening with some serious heartfelt remarks before launching into humor. Don’t try to be too clever when opening your speech, a confident opening will provide you with the perfect platform to deliver your Best Man speech in style.
Best Man Speeches Tip Number 8
Don’t forget to introduce yourself.
While you can expect that the majority of the guests know who you are they may be unsure of your relationship to the Groom, so take a minute to introduce yourself. Refer to your relationship to the Groom here as this allows you one of the first opportunities to add humor to your speech. This humor should expressed as a short one-liner so you can save your longer stories for later in your speech. While introducing yourself, it is also a nice touch, and one that will be appreciated, to include your Groomsmen in your introduction.
Next week we continue through our journey of tips for Best Man speeches by revealing numbers, 7, 6 and 5 in our countdown.
