You may not be surprised to know that when I attend weddings I take a keen notice to scrutinize the Best Man’s speech. I have lost count of the number of weddings I have attended, but one thing is for certain, I have witnessed all sorts of Best Men try to deliver all kinds of Best Man speeches to varying success.

The Good

-the Best Man who immediately responded to a heckler with “congratulations, we have just found the winner of The Most Insecure Guest in the Audience Award”.

-the Best Man who produced an embarrassing poster-size childhood picture of the Groom and passed it around the tables for everyone to sign.

-the Best Man who read a poem he had written about his friendship with the Groom. Touching, classy and worked its magic on everyone that day.

 
The Bad

-the Best Man whose speech was littered with profanities and watched as many parents with children rightfully walked out while he was talking.

-the Best Man who expanded on the past love lives of the Bride and Groom to their horror, not to mention the horror of their families.

-the Best Man who spoke for nearly 10 minutes but at no stage ever complimented the Bride

 
The Ugly

-the Best Man who referred constantly to “Sarah’s great day”, until he eventually was reminded that the Bride’s name was actually Susan.

-the Best Man who said that “the Bride & Groom’s grandparents are smiling down from above”, the Brides grandfather was actually alive & well, and a guest at the wedding.

-the Best Man whose toast was meant to be “may their weddings days be few and anniversaries many” but ended up saying “may their wedding days be many and their anniversaries few”.

Best Man speeches are reliant on quality content more than anything else. The examples above prove that the slightest error could harm your entire speech, so spend time looking at past posts on this site to ensure your Best Man speech is one that’s remembered for all the right reasons.

Our very popular Top 20 Best Man Jokes post is where you will find wedding jokes galore, today we discuss, where and when in your Best Man speech should you use those jokes. Your opening line (5 great opening lines) will dictate the style of speech that you intend giving, if you intend giving a humerous speech then chances are you will use more jokes in your speech, whereas a sincere speech may only use a couple of jokes. Irrespective of how many jokes you plan on telling, ensure they are short, preferrably one-liners

The beauty of one-liner jokes is that they can be filtered virtually anywhere in your speech, though I would veer away from making any jokes when complimenting the Bride. As a Best Man you may have a tendancy to think that it is the jokes that everyone remembers from a Best Man speech and while that in part is true, it is equally as true that a couple of warm sincere lines can have a similar impact.

You know by now the format of a Best Man speech, therefore I would suggest reasonable sections of the speech to make a joke or two would be;

-when discussing when the Groom told you he was getting married

“When John told me he was getting married, I was overjoyed, marriage will teach him loyalty, honor,.respect and a myriad of other qualities he would missed out on by staying single”

-when talking about the Groom

“John told me the believes marriage to be a very serious committment, one that he would not be going into lightly and, as you can see by looking at John, it is a long time since he entered into anything lightly”

-after thanking the Bridesmaids you could make a joke at the Groomsmen’s expense

“The Bridesmaid’s have been a great help to both John and Sarah and will no doubt be the subject of unwanted attention from the Groomsmen once the dancing starts”

It is important to remember that a Best Man has other ways of ensuring laughter and applause greet his speech. A previous post looked at how faxes and emails are a Best Man’s secret weapons whilst another one elaborated on how using props can enhance a Best Man speech, these are vital because you will look at every opportunity to entertain the the guests at the wedding, after all if they are happy and laughing along then you will be overjoyed.

Best Man jokes and wedding one-liners all have a very important part to play in a Best Man speech, however even they struggle to match the impact of a thoughtful few lines put in verse. Whether you choose to write a funny short poem or an emotional heartfelt poem, you can be sure that not only will the Bride and Groom enjoy it, the wedding guests will appreciate it also.

In a previous post we have looked at The power of poetry in a Best Man speech, today we further examine this and look at how to write a Best Man poem.

Firstly you need to decide what type of poem you want to do, a heartfelt one may be best as I am sure your speech is already full of Best Man jokes. Now let us take the essential words that you should put into the poem such as ”Bride”, “Groom”, “toast”, “speech” ”aisle” “wife” etc and find rhyming words or phrases to go with them.

Bride-pride, beauty personified, tried, cried, stride.

Groom- room,bloom,womb, presume, perfume.

Toast- roast, most, boast, ghost, host.

Aisle- while, mile, style, trial, worthwhile.

Wife- life,strife, rife, knife,nightlife.

Speech-reach, breach, screech, peach, teach.

Now with those 6 keywords, along with their respective rhyming words we can now assemble a 12 line poem as per below:

I was overjoyed at today’s honor until, I realized, I had to give a speech
That ensured any holler of delight was soon replaced with a screech
There was not a dry eye to be seen as John and Sarah walked down the aisle
Sarah looked majestic while even John showed a bit of style
John will be a good husband and Sarah a loving wife
They make the perfect couple, ideal for married life
It has been my pleasure to stand as Best Man for friends that matter most
Join me with joy and raise your glass for the wedding toast

I would be very interested in hearing from you, my loyal readers, have you ever been to a wedding where a Best Man included a poem in his speech? If so, how was it received?