Anecdotes. Ribbing your mates. Thanking your folks. Complimenting your wife. Commanding everyone to have fun.

Not necessarily recommended, but made me laugh when I heard them.

I met my wife while I was decorating. As she walked into the room I feel off the step ladder, she asked “what happened, are you alright?

and I replied….. “Yep, Ilm just ovecome with Emulsion”

Or

I’ve been told to take great care of my wife by my mother-in law, so heres a little something with that in mind <hands over present nicely wrapped, which on opening is a baby doll nightie with fur trim around the hem> ……. <pause for effect> …. to keep your neck warm …..

I happen to have mine on USB here, it went down quite well at the time. names ommitted.

OPENING UP

Thank you ___ (father of bride) for proposing the toast and for those kind words.

I had also planned to do a short speech but then this is probably the only time in my life I will get to speak on behalf of ___, so I am going to take my time and enjoy the moment…….

You will be glad to know that my speech will actually be like my kilt, JUST LONG ENOUGH TO COVER THE ESSENTIALS!

GENERAL THANK YOU

Firstly I have great pleasure in saying:
“MY WIFE AND I”…….…. (CHEER)
We would like to thank you all for your PRESENCE and would also like to thank you for your PRESENTS,

In other words we would like to say a huge thank you to you all for coming.
You have all played some part in our lives and we are glad you are all here.
We would also like to thank you for not just making it here today but also for so many wonderful gifts.
We are looking forward to opening them when we get back from our honeymoon.

THOUGHT TO FRIENDS & FAMILY WHO COULD NOT JOIN US

Our many friends from California that could not make it and other friends who have recently had children and were not able to travel.
Also _____’s 100 year old Aunty _____, who is unfortunately not well enough to join us, but if she was here, she would be on that dancefloor before all of you!!

THANK NEW IN-LAWS

Next I would like to thank ____ and ____, my new in-laws. You have made me feel so welcome in the family.

I imagine that you hadn’t really banked on my taking nearly 9 years to steal ____’s surname, but throughout that whole period you have been constantly generous and a great help to ____ and I.

I’d like to say how grateful I am to ___: He has been great and it’s an added bonus that he’s an electrician and a general DIY GOD with every power tool you could possibly imagine, so thank you ____, Marrying _____ is going to save me a fortune!!!

___ & ____ we both owe you so much. For everything you’ve done for us, providing this fantastic venue, and most of all a special thank you to ____ for the haggis pies at Christmas!.

Also thanks to you both for bringing ____ up to be the great person she is today, shes a credit to you both, although I do have 1 minor complaint that she still doesn’t really know what an iron is!

FIRST TIME I MET ______S PARENTS

I will not forget the first time I met ______’s parents.
____ and I had recently moved in together into a new open plan flat in San Francisco. ___, ___, ___ & __ all decided to come and visit for XMAS & _____’s 30th Birthday.

Talk about in at the deep end, meeting the whole ____ Family at once!!
Anyway it was a particularly wet December and 2 days before everyone was due to arrive, the skylight in our living room started to leak and drip water into the lounge. After much shouting from ____ and negotiation of a months free rent, the landlords temporarily fix was to put a blue tarpaulin across the roof, with buckets underneath.

___ & ____ arrived and all seemed fine and after an evening out we went to bed thinking the rain had subsided. We were awoken in the middle of the night to an almighty BOOM, and the sound of heavy rain.
At first I thought it was thunder, but _____ seemed to think it came from the kitchen, so off I was sent to investigate.

On arriving in the kitchen I found 2 inches of water on the wooden floor and ____ lying on his back in the middle of the room looking startled in just his night shirt.

He’d got up to empty the buckets, not realising the extend of the flooding, put one foot on the wet floor and thought he was auditioning for dancing on ice. Luckily he was unhurt and only his pride took a knock.

It wasn’t until 8 years later I realised ____ was also fond of a bit of skating!
Upon one of our visits here we went down to the lake to have a nosey and ___ decided to test how slippy the grass was and almost ended up in the water.
Who knows, perhaps she was trying to throw herself in after seeing the bill?
Speaking of bills ___ has written out a receipt for me. It reads:
Received:

One daughter in perfect condition fully guaranteed.
Care Notes:
– Gets bored easily
– Keep amused with a constant supply of jewellery, handbags and joe malone candles.
– Feed with anything as long as its spicy!
Signed:

Not to be outdone, my mum also has a receipt for my wife to sign. It reads:
Received:

One son, sold as seen, no refunds under any circumstances.
I’ve re-decorated the room and changed the locks so you’re stuck with him.

Care Notes: de-hydrates easily, top up regularly with whisky.
Signed:

THANKS TO MY PARENTS

This brings me onto my parents.

Seriously though I would like to say thank you for your support and guidance throughout the years and for putting me through University.
Thank you for supporting me moving to ______ and back and everything you have done for me.
Also thanks from us both for the great honeymoon; we are really looking forward to it.
At this point I would like to propose my 1st toast to all 4 of our parents

TOAST: TO THE PARENTS

MENTION 2 SPECIAL LADIES

1. FIRSTLY MY GRAN, _____.

Thanks for coming.
I am sure you will be pleased with your new grand-daughter-in law?
I know you love giving her praise for the nicely wrapped Christmas and birthday presents with big bows and flowery paper, but unfortunately that has been me all these years.
I hope you are enjoying yourself as much as we are?

2. BRIDESMAID

______ … You look incredible,
I know how much it means to ______ to have you supporting her today, one of her lifelong friends.
I know ________ would like to thank you for making her hen weekend so special.

Also if you could destroy those photos and my answers to the Mr & Mrs quiz I sent you it would be appreciated.
Ladies and Gentlemen I know you’ll want to join me again And raise your glasses in a toast…….

TOAST: TO THE BRIDESMAID

USHERS

I would also like to quickly thank the ___ & ____ for being ushers and special thanks to ____ for his excellent piano playing:
Anyone name the tune?

Also thanks to ___ for his involvement in organising the stag weekend and our lovely t-shirts. Also for his reading in the ceremony today.
Its good to see you actually made it out of bed for the occasion this time!!!
Also to everyone who made the stag weekend, I hope you will join me in a cheeky Vimto later?

INTRODUCING YOUR WIFE

I’ve become so tangled up in thank you’s … that I still haven’t mentioned the most important person here.

My beautiful Wife
_______, I knew you would look wonderful today and you took my breath away when you came down the aisle. I want everyone to know how lucky I am to marry someone so beautiful, intelligent, kind & genuine.

HOW WE MET

As most of you know we met in 2001 when we were both working in San Francisco. It was love at 1st sight for _____. It seemed I fulfilled all of her criteria for a man in San Francisco:

Good looking, straight and Scottish…..well 2-1/2 out of 3 isn’t bad?
I knew we were perfect for each other when I realised how compatible we were:

You see I am excellent at following instructions, and _______ is really great at giving them!

We dated for a few months and I eventually suggested that it would be a good idea if we moved in together, possibly to a nicer neighbourhood than where she was living. Its not that I didn’t like _____’s posh Penthouse flat, but the drive by shootings were becoming a bit of an inconvenience!!

We eventually moved in together in 2002 to a nice neighbourhood in SF and spent our weekends on camping, cycling, walking and snowboarding trips and have so many memories of our life in California.

One I will always remember and that also made a lasting impression on my parents, involves a yellow taxi cab

As you may have noticed there were no wedding cars today. You may think this was for financial or environmental reasons, but the real reason is that of health & safety.

You see _____ has been developing this nasty habit over the years, which I believe started when she was around 7 years old with her own mother
This habit is that of trying to remove people’s fingers or hands with car doors.

On one of my parents 1st visits to San Francisco, trying to be polite, ______ thought she would help my mum into a yellow cab and close the door for her, what she wasn’t expecting was my mums hand to be still in the door when she closed it.

_______ always likes to make a great 1st impression, I think she succeeded and my mum still has the scars.

______ also tried it on me a few years later, this time slamming the car bonnet on my hand as I was knelt down inflating the tyres.

She has since moved onto other automobile assaults the most notable being when I was lovingly scraping ice from the car windscreen while she was cosy inside the car. She did try to help though……. by squirting the wiper jets & de-icer directly into my eyes.

I remember screaming like a girl, diving on the floor and rubbing snow in my eyes. Luckily it only caused temporary blindness and I recovered through the blue haze to see she was still the one for me!! (Ahhhhhh)

SO I PROPOSED

As Ive mentioned, this isn’t a rushed marriage! In fact, we’ve known each other longer than most married couples.

Not only did I make ______ wait 7 years for a marriage proposal, I also made her climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK for the surprise.

The proposal nearly didn’t happen though, as we had pre-arranged to climb Ben Nevis earlier that year with some friends. I thought it would be a great opportunity to surprise ______ with a proposal at the top, but what I hadn’t banked on was our house moving date falling the weekend after our Ben Nevis trip.

To say _____ didn’t want to climb Ben Nevis the weekend before we moved house is an understatement, and I had to use all of my powers of persuasion to get her to agree to the trip.

I think now she will tell you that the 4 hr slog up Ben Nevis for the surprise at the top was worth it, and I am not sure she actually remembers the trip down, the only scenery being the back of her left hand.

SLUSHY BIT

Well now after almost 2 years of planning the day is finally here.

______,
We have lived together for a long time now,
But I need you to know that I haven’t actually married the women that I want to live with,
I have married the women that I can’t live without. (Aaahhh)
I would now like to read a few words from a song that means a lot to us both, followed by a toast to ______.

With you in my garden, it’s more peaceful inside
I don’t need anything else to make me feel alive
You electrify me, And I want to be in your arms
for always

Our love is swollen
Made of the quietest shade of loud
Holds me like an anchor
Floats just like a cloud

TOAST: TO ________

INTRODUCE THE BEST MAN

I wasn’t sure who to ask at first, but decided on someone trustworthy, reliable, who was a good organiser, public speaker and most of all acceptable to the rest of the family.
Unfortunately he wasn’t available so I had to ask ____’s brother _____.

I was actually quite glad when ____ agreed to be best man as he told me he was concerned that he wouldn’t have enough embarrassing things to say about me.
Perfect I thought, he’s just the man for the job!

Also as an added bonus he hopefully won’t want to ruin his sister’s marriage in the next few minutes!

I would sincerely like to thank ____ for agreeing to be best man, it means a lot to myself and to _____

I would also like to thank him for his part in organising the stag do and most of all for rescuing my guitar from the hotel bar at 3am in his underpants!!

On that note, I will hand you over to ______

blimey thats a long one!

+1000 for it being the easiest speech in the world, and plenty of advice above as to what to include etc.

My only advice would be, if you are not a confident public speaker, and even if you are, practice. write your speech and then practice it, out loud a few times. hearing yourself say it, not just reading it through in your head, will help to iron out any problems and get you used to what you’re saying. A top tip I’ve received and used often is to read it out loud to yourself looking at yourself in the mirror. Making eyecontact with your self as you read it will help to make it more of a real life situation.

Practice will help your confidence and confidence will lead to a great speech. a great speech badly delivered is worse to listen to than bad speech delivered well.

If it takes longer to say than to read your original post, its too long.

We went to a wedding where the Groom got out a ream of A4 for his speech. Those that didn’t really know him, laughed. Those that knew him, groaned…

An hour later he was still talking.

Hey, it depends on how much of a traditionalist you are, but given it is a speech on behalf of you and wife, we did it together. We just wrote down a list of people who needed thanking, in alphabetical order so as to avoid offending any divorced relatives as to who came first in the list. Then just ad libbed it from the list, half of them each, can’t remember if we split the list in the middle or did one/two, kept it short and didn’t waste valuable drinking time. Jokes went in the thank-yous. We’re both quite confident public speakers though which helped, and it seemed to go well – easy audience, specially if you keep it short. i think i was a bit pissed but not massively so, probably doesn’t help!

Not a traditionalist at all and our wedding is more a big party after the registry office,
My speech will be much shorter than organic355’s,

I’ve a few days off work this week which I’ll use some time to put it together, I’ve put together a list of ideas I want to include, future mrstacopowell wants to get in the act and continue our speech! Thanking her grandparents, inspartional after 70+ years of marriage!