Best Man Speeches

I felt the same when I did mine. Was stressed for weeks. Just absolutely pointless. Hopefully tradition will have changed when your lasses are up.
Told my lass when we do marry I'm not doing a speech. Want it to be something to look forward to with her and our mates and family, not dread for 2 years. Same goes with my best mate and his speech.
 


Told my lass when we do marry I'm not doing a speech. Want it to be something to look forward to with her and our mates and family, not dread for 2 years. Same goes with my best mate and his speech.
That’s what it should be man. It’s you and your lasses event. Personally I find the whole speech thing and forcing people to do what you want egotistical as fuck.
 
Writing one, finding it more difficult than I'd ever imagined. Any tips, oh wise SMB?
I had a melt down 36 hours before the wedding. Deleted my whole speech that I’d been working on for god knows how long, just seemed too contrived. Ended up writing out some flash cards in the bar before the ceremony with 12 rules about giving a best man’s speech that I’d found on a website. Just went through them all and broke each one.
 
When I get round to marriage, im wanting to avoid the whole speech malarky. I dont want to do a groom speech, dont want someone speaking about me. In fact id just not bother with the whole of the middle bit of the day as its the worst bit. Just go straight from ceremony to the piss up.

Well i know my best man and father in law were pleased there was no speeches and sure the guests were pleased they didnt have to go through their fake laugh routine

My best man especially said he enjoyed the day more knowing he didnt have the pressure of a speech to do

:lol::lol:

f***ing hell are you joking? It’s one of the highlights of the day man.

Everyones had a drink and ready for a good laugh.

Nah mate seriously, i agree people might be ready for a good laugh but i’d never been to a wedding where the best mans speech had delivered any laughs so we knocked it on the head
 
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I was Best Man at my brother’s wedding, with me knowing all his dark secrets from our childhood, I’d incorporated that stuff in the speech. But actually writing it was a challenge though. I’d brought a couple “how to....” type books and looked around online for best ways too. Also it helped that I worked in a press office and was able to pick the brains of people I knew that wrote speeches and do interviews for a living.

I managed to get something down on paper, and my work colleagues had me practice in front of them, offering advice and suggestions to improve my reading.

Unfortunately on the actual day, I was all set... until my brother said his speech. He went for the emotional heartstrings, had the whole room reduced to tears with what he was saying, as he was talking I was looking around the room (one of my colleagues advice was “judge the room you start”), seeing people’s faces and their reactions. And I looked down at my speech and thought “shit, I cannot follow that!”

So chucked the speech and went straight to the congrats cards and the toasts.
 
I've done one and written a couple for others.
Keep it short, you are an amusing side show, not the reason people have come to the wedding. One or two funny tales about the groom. As others have said, avoid standard jokes found on the internet.
If taking the piss out of the groom, incriminate yourself as well so it's not a hatchet job. It is their day and they shouldn't be dreading any part of it.
Say something nice about the bride.
Write the speech out but just use bullet points on the day.
Overall, don't be a dick. It's your job to make the day slightly better than it already is.

And don't, under any circumstances, accidentally thank the barmaids instead of the bridesmaids.;)
 
I’ve done it 5 bloody times with the first always the worse.
Mind you in every case I have had so much material on all of them.

Remember nobody is looking at you to fail and everyone are generally in happy mode.
 
I did it for my brother. I hated it, the months before were hell, the day was hell, even after the speech I felt so drained I couldn't enjoy it

It was funny like, I think anyway. I put more effort into it than I've done in anything else in my life.

Keep it to 7 minutes tops. Complement the bride, bridesmaids etc. Pad it out with some cheesey lines, no one will care.

Keep it universal, no one wants to hear "remember when we were 16 drinking cider in that park and we bumped then lasses" etc

There's a website where people upload their speeches for people to vote on. I read hundreds of them and nicked the odd line that I thought might not have been done too often

Good luck!
 
Avoid in jokes. 3 people in the room will get it. The rest will not.
Nothing worse than shit going over your head aye

The best man speech I remember and loved the most was my brother's best mate. He and my brother have been mates since we were babies and the mate is very very shy.

He told some funny stories but what made it was how much he really loved my brother and how happy he was for him.

It was verrrrrrrry f***ing dusty
 
Done it twice. Rip the piss as much as possible, without insulting his family. Any lookalikes you used to have for him are always good to include.
 
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My worst nightmare is doing a speech. I've daughters so I'll have to do the father of the bride thing. I get nervous even thinking about. Not kidding.

I've been married almost 35 years and my Dad didn't make a speech at our wedding.
He was a man of few words and I wasn't bothered in the slightest because I knew he would have hated it. He did walk me down the aisle mind ;)
 

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