Your wedding speech - to speak or not to speak?

Arguably the most important part of a wedding is the speeches.  We all recognise the ‘will he?’, ‘won’t he?’ anticipation of the long-awaited best man’s speech, the heart-wrenching ‘I’ve not lost a daughter, I’ve gained a son’ of the father of the bride, and the genuinely romantic groom’s speech all play a significant role in the day’s proceedings.

Rewrite the rule book

No matter how used you may be to public speaking, it’s a nerve-wracking thing and we see it all the time here at SbN. Even seasoned professionals used to performing to crowds of thousands of screaming girls get the wedding speech nerves. Take Tom Fletcher, of McFly boy band fame, and his YouTube hit of a wedding speech song for example. Tom admitted to being hugely nervous about his wedding speech, so instead of nervously faltering his way through a million thank you’s, he did what he knew best and wrote a song as his speech.

Sometimes wedding speeches require a different spin and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with rewriting the rule book in order to make your speeches cool, cute and achingly entertaining.

Girl power!

Despite it being a nerve-wracking duty, many brides now are choosing to make a speech – all part of the Girl Power craze that swept through the late 90s.  No longer willing to sit quietly and let others do the talking, I see a lot of SbN weddings nowadays where the brides want to have their say before the honeymoon has even begun.

In fact bride’s speeches are so commonplace that there are books written to help you write the perfect piece. Websites such as www.weddingspeechbuilder.com and www.hitched.co.uk have excellent top tips for what to include and how to keep your audience entertained.

But for my money, I’d honestly recommend that you simply sit down with the laptop and a bottle of wine one evening and watch some of the brilliant speeches on YouTube.

Then all that’s left is to write your song and learn to sing! No worries!