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.

Given that most Best Men are not used to giving public speeches in front of a large audience it is understandable that most prefer to give short speeches rather than longer ones, while this is fine it is important not to leave any important sections of the speech out in order to try to attempt to use your time as Best Man to be a stand-up comedian.

The key to awesome short funny Best Man speeches is to use humor every now and then rather than all the time but make sure when you are funny, you are very funny. To achieve this you need to separate the parts of your speech where you will speak in a serious friendly tone such as the opening, praising of the newlyweds along with when you are thanking the various wedding parties before ending the speech with an inspiring wedding toast once you have that arranged then the rest of your speech is where you can insert the funny lines to make your Best Man speech unforgettable.

Best Man speech jokes and funny wedding one-liners will help you achieve this as would funny props for a Best Man speech but aside from that try to include a short personal story that will leave the Groom blushing and the audience laughing out loud in enjoyment.

Each time that the guests laugh pause briefly, allow the full impact of your words to register with them, before continuing on with your speech. Another good tip is not to focus all your humor and jokes in the direction of the Groom, have a laugh at the Groomsmen’s expense or even at your own expense just make sure that there are no jokes about the Bride incorporated into your speech.

Other methods of funny content for your Best Man speech include funny Best Man marriage advice, famous funny wedding quotes by celebrities and also by including funny faxes as part of your props. Once you have the mixture of fun sections and serious parts of your speech written it is important to blend them together according to the correct format of a Best Man speech.

The delivery of a short Best Man speech is extremely important as you will only be speaking for a relatively short period of time, 3 minutes typically, so it is very important that you make a telling contribution during those few minutes in order to give everyone, yourself included, something to smile about.

The rush of adrenalin and overall feeling of joy after giving a perfect Best Man speech that has the guests standing in unison applauding your Best Man speech makes all the preparation and research worthwhile. The surge of self-achievement and elation will make up for any sleepless nights you had worrying about your speech.  For many people the fear of giving the speech hampers their ability to write a Best Man speech that is funny, witty, and heartwarming , if you find your creative juices deserting you then it will be worth investing in some sample Best Man speeches that allow you to kiss your nerves goodbye.

1. Keep it short.

Short Best Man speeches leave a greater impact than rambling speeches that seem to drag on and on. A long speech will only bore the guests so keep your speech brief between 2 to 5 minutes.

2. Be funny.

As the most anticipated wedding speech of all the Best Man has a responsibility to be amusing albeit in a clever way rather than offensive humor.

3. Be serious.

Don’t forget that the serious lines are just as important as the funny ones so be vivid in your praise of the Bride, give an example when remarking on your friendship with the Groom and mention your gratitude for being chosen as Best Man for the special occasion.

4. Practice your speech aloud.

The best way to prepare for the speech is to read it aloud as often as you can, this allows you to get comfortable with delivery and will help avoid any jitters when the moment of truth arrives.

5.  Don’t leave it too late.

Leaving your Best Man speech to the last minute will be disastrous, the lack of preparation will be very obvious to the wedding guests and you may offend your best friend, the Groom, by not taking the role more seriously.

6. Talk about the happy couple.

Ensure your speech includes a short story about the Bride and Groom as a couple that underpins their love for each other.

7. End your speech with a great Best Man toast.

The toast is the most important part of the speech so make sure your speech ends on a high with a heartwarming Best Man toast rather than attempting to be funny.

Once your speech is over as you revel in the excitement afterwards it will take some time to come down from the high that a successful Best Man speech provides so prepare well and when your moment arrives deliver the speech of a lifetime.