Here is some advice!
The toasting hour can be a highlight -- or dud -- of any wedding. The key to a successful toast is your preparedness -- remember that old Boy Scout stuff? Read on to learn how to beg, borrow, or steal the gift of gab.
Planning
Advance planning is the first step to giving the perfect toast. Write down what you're going to say. It's wonderful to improvise, but if the spontaneity bug doesn't bite as you stare down at a hundred expectant faces, you won't live it down for years. Reading your toast word-for-word is also a no-no: Use note cards to write an outline or key words that will prompt you with your toast (though you may want to give the happy couple a written copy of the entire toast. More on that later). If you need help organizing your toast, look at ';Content'; below.
Practice ahead of time. Say your toast out loud a few times to get used to the idea. Practicing will also let you know how long your toast is. Three or four minutes may seem like a lifetime at first, but you'll be the envy of any Toastmaster after a few run-throughs.
Content
Wondering how to show you really care about your buddy? The exact words are up to you, but you can follow this formula to get started:
You can end -- or begin -- with a quote. Look at 25 Great Quotes for inspiration.
Thank the parents of the bride and groom if they paid for the event. If the bride and groom are footing the bill themselves, thank them for inviting everyone to share the big day.
Identify yourself and your relationship to the bride and groom (not everyone will know who you are).
Tell a touching yet humorous story about how the newlyweds first met.
Relate an amusing, and maybe even embarrassing, story about your escapades with the groom.
End with a message of hope and congratulate the blushing bride and proud groom.
Finally, upon pain of terrible embarrassment, do not:
Tell ex-girlfriend-of-the-groom stories.
Make fun of the bride.
Tell risqu茅 jokes -- the groom's grandmother will probably be there.
Tell ';in'; jokes that most guests won't understand.
Ramble on about how you'll miss the good old days.
Make the groom look like a slacker, loser, or drunkard.
Giving the Toast
You'll know it's time to wag your silver tongue when the MC announces you at the beginning of the reception (or after dinner, depending on the wedding schedule). Once you're clutching the microphone, what next? Follow these tips and you won't go wrong:
Be prepared. Don't think you'll come up with something witty at the last second. You may end up staring like a deer in headlights as the wedding guests squirm in their seats.
Speak slowly. Don't rush through your speech, and try to speak as clearly as you can.
Speak loudly enough for even Great Uncle Jed to hear you.
Keep it brief: five minutes, tops. If you sense audience restlessness, wrap it up.
Don't stare at your notes -- engage your audience. Look not only at the bride and groom, but at the rest of the audience, too.
Guests expect to be entertained, not instructed, so don't try to force-feed a life lesson down their throats. Keep it sweet and light.
Stay (relatively) sober. You don't want to be remembered as the smarmy guy who made off-color jokes about the groom's mother. One drink of liquid courage may help you with your toast. Five will definitely hinder you.
One last tip: Write out your toast and give it to the bride and groom. They'll be touched that you cared so much.
Still deciding whether to crack everyone up with your reception toast or keep it safe and serious? The answer: do a little of both. Nothing kills a wedding buzz faster than a stiff in a tux who thinks the assembled crowd cares about his spiritual trek through Tanzania with the groom. At the same time, the groom's forays into debauchery are not exactly parent-proof (or bride-proof) material. If you're wondering how to balance these two extremes, read on.
Your Role
As your friend's best man, you're a walking, talking reminder of the prenuptial good fella he was before he met his dearly beloved. You are a living testament to the good times, bad times, and ridiculously stupid times he had as a bachelor. If you're already married, you know how important it is for the groom to maintain a death-grip on his single-guy past -- in memory if not in action. That's where you come in.
The Big Night
When the big moment rolls around, your mission is to tell friends, parents, and newly minted in-laws that the groom was not only a dedicated friend, caring son, and industrious student, but a guy who knew how to party when the occasion called for it. How you deliver that message is a matter of personal preference, but try a bittersweet mix of sentimental recollection and good old-fashioned ribbing.
Pleased to Meetcha
First thing's first: Introduce yourself with a brief description of how long, and in what capacity, you've known the groom. You want everyone to get a feel for the friendship that inspired him to choose you -- above all others -- as his best man. If you guys met in a less-than-savory place, tone down the details of your first encounter and focus on the moments between then and now. If you've been friends since childhood, take a moment to pay homage to the staying power of your bond.
High Jinks
Once you've established your legitimacy as the true Barney to his Fred, move on to the verbal slide show, highlighting moments from your life of crime together -- figuratively speaking, of course -- and classic episodes from the happy days you've shared. This is a good place to insert some humor, so feature first dates, travel adventures, and mistaken identities. Try to keep anecdotes short and sweet, and make sure they share a common theme: your unique friendship with this one-of-a-kind guy who has stood by you through thick and thin.
Give the Thumbs Up
Finally, use your best-friend credibility to assure his new bride that she has partnered with the one man in the universe worthy of her attention. If you know her well enough, throw in a few words about the perfect nature of their union. (Hint: Mention specifics, like their mutual love for tennis and post-post-deconstructionist literary discourse.) Basically, give their relationship the big thumbs-up and then add how much you're looking forward to the second act of your friendship, starring not just your buddy, but his wife and (if applicable) your better half. This last step is a crucial component of your toast: Do not forget to include it. It is the best thing you can do to charm the crowd and ensure the stability of your post-honeymoon friendship with the groom.
In a Nutshell
Think of the best-man toast as a screenplay for your own personal buddy flick starring the groom and yours truly, plus cameo appearances by his bride, your fraternity brothers, and the Honda you totaled in high school. Make sure it's got plenty of action, a bit of romance, and an irresistibly happy ending. And, for your best friend's sake, try to keep it PG-13.
Want to start your toast with a bang? We've collected 25 quotes on love, marriage, and the union of two souls. Read on to find the perfect words.
1. Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
-- Ambrose Bierce, ';The Devil's Dictionary,'; 1911
2. Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
-- Mae West
3. One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
-- Sophocles
4. Love is blind -- marriage is the eye-opener.
-- Pauline Thomason
5. I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.
-- Rita Rudner
6. To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.
-- Ogden Nash
7. A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The rest is trust.
-- Nanette Newman
8. Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.
-- Groucho Marx
9. The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.
-- Iris Murdoch
10. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
11. Immature love says: ';I love you because I need you.'; Mature love says: ';I need you because I love you.';
-- Erich Fromm
12. Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
13. A good marriage is like a casserole, only those responsible for it really know what goes in it.
-- Anonymous
14. To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.
-- Woody Allen
15. Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
-- Victor Borge
16. Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
-- Rabbi H. Schachtel
17. And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
18. Marriage is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is Eternity.
-- Kahlil Gibran
19. Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.
-- Barnett Brickner
20. There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.
-- Martin Luther
21. A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
-- Mignon McLaughlin
22. Marriage should be a duet -- when one sings, the other claps.
-- Joe Murray
23. The great secret of successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.
-- Sir Harold George Nicolson
24. Love is the lifespring of our existence. The more love you give, the happier you feel and the more love you will have within you to give.
-- Susan L. Taylor
25. Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soulsAny advice on giving a ';best man'; speech?
Some good advice there. Thanks.
I just had to be best man twice this summer, and found the Best Man Bible (http://www.thebestmanbible.com) to be invaluable. Great, great best man speeches and other best man advice. Highly recommended. Report Abuse
I like the 3 S鈥檚: Short, Sincere, and Sober. Here鈥檚 a Best Man speech that I gave recently:
http://www.squidoo.com/BestManSpeechExample Report Abuse
Try this website for starters, I've found some great ideas on there.
http://quotations.about.com/cs/weddingto鈥?/a>
Just remember to keep it clean and PG rated. Grandma and Grandpa don't need to hear about wild frat parties in college.
watch wedding crashers
You usually give the speech at the reception, before everyone starts to eat. My best man wrote down his speech on a card for us. Which is a good thing because he got choked up and had to do a short version. Say things like how you think this couple is unique and loving, (DON';T mention ex-girlfriends. DON';T drink to ';loosen'; up before you give the speech. )When did you meet the groom? Make it come from the heart. You're the best man for a reason. Good luck.
There's a formula but you have to 1) compliment the bride on how beautiful she looks,2) tell a story about him growing up that shows your friends ship,3) tell a story about how you know she is the one for him, 4) make in funny 5) don't forget to toast.
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