Davidson - Perfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts

George Davidson is a former senior editor with Chambers Harrap. He is an experienced researcher and writer of reference books and has participated in several weddings as bridegroom, best man, and father of the bride. He lives in Edinburgh.

Perfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts is an invaluable guide to preparing and delivering unforgettable speeches. Covering everything from advice on mastering your nerves to tips about how to make a real impact, it walks you through every aspect of preparing for the big day and speaking in public. Whether youre the father of the bride, the bride herself, the groom or the best man, Perfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts will help make sure your speech goes off without a hitch.

The author would like to thank Sophie Lazar, Emily Rhodes and Sophie Hutton-Squire for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this book, the Rev. John Davidson for his useful suggestions and advice, and David Foster for one particularly good idea.

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Perfect Babies Names Rosalind Fergusson

Perfect Best Man George Davidson

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Perfect Interview Max Eggert

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Perfect Personality Profiles Helen Baron

Perfect Psychometric Test Results Joanna Moutafi and Ian Newcombe

Perfect Pub Quiz David Pickering

Perfect Punctuation Stephen Curtis

Perfect Readings for Weddings Jonathan Law

WE WILL ASSUME for the time being that this is going to be a fairly traditional wedding and wedding reception. (We will deal with variations later on.) We will, therefore, assume that there will be a bride and a groom, two sets of parents (with no divorces or bereavements), a male best man, and at least one bridesmaid or matron of honour. The reception will be a sit-down meal, and it is the father of the bride who will be hosting it (and paying for it!).

In we will cover both the necessary and the possible contents of the various speeches in detail, but at this point it will be useful to get an overview of the purpose of the main wedding speeches and how they relate to one another, so that you can see how your speech fits in to the whole system of things.

Typically, the speeches and toasts come after the meal and before the cutting of the wedding cake. There are three speeches, because you need three speakers to cover the two toasts that are traditionally made (there can be others, as we will discuss later in this chapter) and the two replies to these toasts. And by tradition the three speakers are the brides father, the bridegroom, and the best man (in that order):

• The brides father concludes his speech with a toast to the bride and groom.
• The groom begins his speech by thanking the brides father for his kind words...
  ... and concludes his speech with a toast to the bridesmaid.
• The best man thanks the bridegroom on behalf of the bridesmaid.

That is the basic structure of the toasts and replies. Anything else any other thank yous, any jokes or anecdotes, etc. is fitted into this framework.

Now the first thing to be noted is that there is, in fact, no necessity for anyone to make a speech at all. The father of the bride could simply stand up and invite everyone to join him in a toast to the bride and groom, in words along the lines of:

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like you all to join me now in wishing John and Julie a very happy marriage.

[Turn towards the bride and bridegroom] John and Julie.

The families and guests would all stand, turn to the newly-weds, raise their glasses, repeat John and Julie, and sit down again. The bridegroom would then stand, thank his father-in-law for his good wishes and propose a simple toast to the bridesmaid, again joined by the families and the guests. The best man would stand, thank the bridegroom on behalf of the bridesmaid, and then read out the cards and letters of good wishes from people who have not been invited or not been able to attend the wedding.

At its simplest, that is all that is strictly required of the three speakers. And there could be good reasons why the bride and groom and their families might decide that this is all that will be said at the reception. But its not very interesting, is it? Not much fun. Not very memorable. The toasts and replies are only the barest of bare bones its the speeches that go with them that add the fun and the interest on the day. So lets look (only briefly at this stage) at the contents of the three speeches.

The father of the bride, and as such the host at the wedding reception, should begin his speech by welcoming his guests and thanking them for coming. His speech should probably include the following:

• how proud he and his wife are of their daughter, and congratulations to the groom on his choice of wife
• an amusing or interesting anecdote or two about events in his daughters life
• a few complimentary words about the groom, and how happy he and his wife are that their daughter has chosen such a fine husband
• his and his familys pleasure at meeting and getting to know the grooms family
• an amusing anecodote about something that happened during the wedding preparations, and/or a joke or two, or an amusing story

Finally he will bring his speech to a close by inviting everyone present to join him in his toast to the bride and groom.

The bridegroom speaks mostly on behalf of his wife and himself, but of course, if talking to or about his bride, he is speaking for himself alone.

The easiest way for the groom to begin his speech is by thanking his father-in-law for his kind words and the toast. This both links his speech to what has gone before and also provides a lead-in to what he should say next. But of course he may want to begin his speech in some other way and bring in the thanks later on. The bridegrooms speech could include the following:

• thanks to the brides parents for welcoming him into the family and allowing him to marry their daughter
• thanks to the brides father for the wedding and the reception (perhaps also adding his thanks to the caterers, if they deserve it)
• thanks to his new wife for agreeing to marry him, and how fortunate he is to have such a beautiful/intelligent/successful/understanding/loving bride
• thanks to his own parents for how they have brought him up, and for their support and guidance through the years
• thanks to the guests for attending the wedding, for their good wishes, and for their gifts
• thanks to the best man and the ushers for their help and support
• thanks on his wifes behalf to the bridesmaid for her help and support

As you will have seen, a large part of the bridegrooms speech involves saying thank you, but just as with the father of the brides speech, there should be some lighter moments. The bridegroom should probably include some information about how he and his wife met, perhaps with an amusing anecdote about how their relationship developed (or didnt at first!). There could also be an amusing story about something that happened during the wedding preparations.