oh lordy, best-man speech writing time :-S

Hi,

I'm joint best man at my mate's wedding fairly soon and the other best-man and I are trying to formulate a speech together via email (he lives hundreds of miles from me).

I'm looking for pointers, tips and any linkies to genuinely helpful sites re speech writing.

There seems to be so much guff on the internet so any help would be much appreciated!

'the bridesmaids, I think you'll agree, look like movie stars'…'Charles Bronson'

Just stand up and shout "fornication" at the top of your voice,

then go on to say…For an occasion such as this…..

Or fat Penguin? – something to break the ice?

ah yes, the old "fornication" trick… I did actually consider that (briefly)

:-/

My best mate is a farmer so I got to use the "Outstanding in his field" line.

Nobody got it though

"The groom has finally admitted, that i am indeed the best man."
"Doesn't the bride look lovely, and the Groom, well its the thought that counts…"

Go for the Blackadder way of doing speeches

Make sure you roar well and your crotch is thrust out nice and far with your legs as wide as possible.

Knock up a quick powerpoint presentation, saw it a couple of weeks ago, Brilliant!!!

I've seen a joint best man's speech before – it was a disaster. Very difficult if you try to talk banter between each other. That's made you feel better 😉

Don't be afraid to just read it out as long as you don't have your head down mumbbling into a sheet of paper. When drunk people will laught at all your jokes – even shite ones pinched off hitched.co.uk.

You've at least got a headstart on a mate's best man speech for the wedding in a month: he can't red or write proply (but he's a very good bike mechanic).

Done it twice. Two opening lines for you:
'This is the second time today I have got off a warm seat with a piece of paper in my hand…'
and
Being a best man is a bit like being asked to snog the queen mum. It is a great honour, but lets be honest, no-one want's to do it'

And this weeks one from another best man…
Pete is a thoughtful chap. He likes to ponder everything and discuss it. Why, only this morning on the way into the church, he asked the vicar 'What do you think about sex before marraige?' The vicar, glancing at the clock replied 'There isn't enough time for that, lad…'

🙂

xxxx is my hero, he's strong, he's upright in short he's a c0ck

My original first opening line was……

'I was quite surprised when John told me Rebecca had agreed to marry him as he had his cock in my mouth at the time.'

I wasn't allowed to use it though

Plum

A joint speech could be done like the comentary in the movie mean machine at the match at the end. Absofuckinlutely bob.

Having done a few now, I'd say;

a) don't sweat it too much. It's a happy occasion and folk are in high spirits, and people will laugh at any old crap with sufficient free booze in 'em.

b) try to avoid too many clichés – a few are ok but everyone's heard stock lines before. Better to tailor it to the couple, presumably you know them well or you wouldn't be doing it. Last BMS I gave, I got a World of Warcraft joke in there, then followed up with "for the benefit of those who don't know what I'm talking about, that was really funny" – and got away with it.

If there's two of you, don't do a line each, that's just painful. Either defer to the more confident / better speaker to take the role, or do half and half (or 60:40 or whatever).

The groom has always said he loves every bone in the brides body especially his own , i finished with this one and got a slight telling of by the brides mum's boyfriend grumpy **** even the oldies laughed . And yes i do know it's not a real bone but it is funny

Thanks guys! More of this please but I'm afraid. I need fairly tame stuff…grandparents on their eighties and staunch (rather stern) Catholics :-S

And yeah thankfully I have met the other best man and get on with him well…still tricky to work out speech without meeting…

Thought i’d resurrect rather than starting new, less than 2 months to go and they’re starting to ask how i’m getting on with the speech so I thought i’d better make a start.

Any more advice other than what’s above. Specifically I was best mates / house mates with the groom at uni, but in the six or seven Years since graduation we’ve not actually seen each other that much, for the past 2 years i’ve lived a few thousand miles away in fact. He met his wife just before graduation so much of their engagement I know little about…..

Was BMS to someone who got married just after the last general election. I said the groom was pleased with the result because at least one new thing in his wife’s life would be properly hung.

Be prepared to change it a fair bit on the day once you’ve seen what happened at the ceremony, and to ad lib if others are making speeches before you.

Get two big fat sumo outfits, and then announce that as the groom couldn’t work out which person he liked the most you decided to settle it with a sumo fight.

Or you could try to work out some funny banter between the two bestmen that hints that neither were happy that the other is a bestman too…like interrupting each other, or making snide comments while the other is talking.

I divided my time equally between slagging off the groom, and slagging myself- makes for a bit of balance and means you can get away with being really evil without everyone thinking you’re a ****. Apparently it was quite good.

The raw materials need to be about the groom, so nobody else can tell you what to write. You can pick up oneliners from other speeches but tbh half of them are rubbish and most of the time they end up seeming really wedged in. I ended up using them as placeholders then as I built the speech replaced them with better ones.

A good icebreaker is finding some historic events for the day, I was delighted to find that there were absolutely no auspicious historic weddings on the day 😉

Keep it short and simple. Don’t try to be funny if yo are not naturally. Practise it – reading outloud

Lots of good advice given. I was joint best man last year and although I’m not used to talking to an audience, having someone else to help made it much easier.
May I suggest instead of using emails bounced back and forward, try using Google Docs and sharing it. It allows both to edit same time, so almost like a chat.

After introducing yourselves,
xxxx wanted a best man but couldn’t find one, so he got two mediocre ones instead!

Chuck this in somewhere:
I can honestly say that in all the years I’ve known him, no one has ever questioned xxxx’s intelligence. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone even mention it.

And an ending like the 2 Ronnies:
Congrats from me.. And a congrats from him.

I have the joint best man job this Saturday – bricking it and have an ear infection to boot, so will probably fall over just to cap it off.
The other BM seems to be keen to say a few things so I may leave it to him. Groom and father of the bride are’nt doing speeches either – so it may be acceptable to swerve it!

I’ve done 2 best man speeches… neither one of them was planned beyond about 10 words on a piece of paper.

basic structure – couple of minutes jabbering on each of these topics:
– you and the groom (how long you’ve known each other, jolly japes etc.)
– the groom (pick 2 or 3 funny/mildly insulting stories)
– the groom and the bride (nice stuff, or nice funny stuff)
– how good they are together (if you know them both try to think of a riduculous example that shows how matched they are)
– wish them well (if you can engineer a crack in your voice you will have the room in the palm of your hand)
– toast the couple
– done.

STAY WELL AWAY FROM ALL BEST MAN SPEECH WEBSITES, do not even look at them for mild research… there are trite, cliché phrases on there which will get into your head and prevent you from thinking of your own stuff to say.

All you need to do is stand up for a few minutes and talk about your mate, stuff you got up to in the past and how much you hope he’ll be happy in the future. Easy, no need to worry.

Good Luck,
Dave

write it from the heart and DON’T copy anything from the web because its been done a million times.