Wing it. Be a man. This one speech sets the tone for the rest of your married life. Your married life.

Say what you like. Toss back a few first. Speak from the heart.

Might as well just get your cock out.

Use a prop, like a dildo or a novelty fart noise maker. People love props.

Wing it, all my best stuff comes from winging it, in terms of real life and speeches.

Wing it, you'll be fine mate. Wishing you best.

I was winging it in that post btw

I know I come across as a complete fucking ignoramus on here, but it's one of very few things I'm reasonably good at.

I would at least make notes, even mental notes.
If you don't thank the bridesmaids you are fucked for life!

...I'd love to wind this up with a hilarious denouement, but suffice to say I presumably made a total cunt of myself, but largely got away unscathed because everyone had drunk so much wine by this point.
Twenty two years later, and I haven't the faintest idea what I said. Blanked the whole memory.

So yeah, for fuck sake, never wing it.

g.man wrote:

Twenty two years later, and I haven't the faintest idea what I said. Blanked the whole memory.

It's a blur now, but if they were common people you must've rolled with it.

I've been to two weddings and find them hateful events. Although the gypsy wedding was fine, and I was a toddler the other time.

That goes for about the first thirty years of my life.

Ain't no thang.

Liveinadive wrote:

1. Thank everyone collectively 2. Thank everyone who played a role in the wedding. 3. Thank whoever paid for it if it wasn't you. 4. "...and of course my beautiful wife" 5. Tell a short anecdote about how you met, or the first time you knew you would marry her etc. It can be funny but only at your expense. 6. Hand over fairly promptly. Father of the bride and best man speeches are the long ones and you don't want everyone to get restless, especially if there are kids there. 7. Toast and sit down. Pretty much g's link but without the formality of the correct order or the bouquet rubbish.

Thank the bridesmaids and compliment them. See how you forget stuff If you don’t pre plan.

"I was really nervous when I was asked to do this speach so I prepared a few lines.... now I've done them I feel a lot better" opening joke from the best man's speach at the last wedding I was at. Really divided the audience that one some very stern looks.

tigerswiftly wrote:

I'm getting married this weekend. Apparently I'm supposed to do a speech but Lady Tiger gets angry when I tell her I'm amazing at published speaking and will just wing it. So I'm putting some thoughtful into it. Any suggestions/advice on my speech? Like, length?

Congratulations Tiger, that's great news.

As others have said, and from my own experience, don't wing it.

I told myself that, having done lots of public speaking at which I had just improvised, I would be absolutely fine doing the same with my groom's speech.  After all, it's a shorter speech, and really all you're expected to do is say something nice about the bride, thank everyone, and sit down again.  Easy.

So I did it, off the top of my head, riffing a little on what was going on around me, telling my wife she was amazing, issuing a load of thank yous and throwing in the occasional gentle joke.  I was, in my estimation, absolutely great, and had totally got away with it. I sat down to applause, and as I did so my wife leaned across, put a hand on my shoulder and hissed "you're supposed to thank my parents".

So yeah.  Definitely prepare.

(Fortunately for me I was able to cover it up, in that the in-laws bought the "doing a separate toast for the bride's parents because they're so important" routine that I then came up with.  Or at least they were gracious enough to pretend that they did.  And in any case the best-man's speech managed to cause sufficient scandal that mine was soon forgotten...)

Having said that spontaneity's nice too, so allow yourself to go off script, so long as you tick all the requisite boxes.  (The best speech at our wedding, by a considerable margin, was when the head bridesmaid drunkenly stood on the table, declared that she wasn't letting any man, "best" or otherwise speak for her; and delivered a genuinely beautiful, if somewhat slurred, monologue about never having believed in love until she saw the pair of us...)