Best Man Speech Help!

[R.O.S.S.I]

3 weeks till i'm the best man at my best mates wedding and i'm struggling with the speech a tad.

Not struggling in getting pen to paper but struggling with stories and how to make them relevant. Is it OK to just tell a funny story for the sake of it? I.e. do you need to have an underlying point to the story about the groom?

I think I've got the structure down which goes like this:

• Little joke about the food to open.
• Thanks to guests, parents, groomsmen, bridesmaid and bride and groom
• Introduce myself
• How/when i was asked to be best man
• How me and groom met and became friends
• Funny story about groom
• Brief mentions of a few other funny moments from past
• Relay short message from someone who couldnt attend
• Heartfelt bit about groom
• Heartfelt bit about groom and bride
• May throw in the gag about the cake being in tiers here as I may actually be a bit teary at this point.
• Toast and end

Ive not had a verbal run through yet but typed out its nearly 2 pages long (1200 words) so i'm thinking it'll be roughly 5-7 minutes?

Anyone any words of advice or anything they can offer up about the speech? I'm not going to go near anything offensive or similar and I wont be swearing either.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

Don't get jokes from the Internet, they've all pretty much been done to death. The cake being in tiers is so predictable it's pretty cringe worthy.

I've not really, the laughs are more observational about people attending really. Ive never actually heard the cake in tiers one but yeh I can imagine its been done to death!

The stories don't need to be relevant. My best man (who was a woman as it goes) told a story about me photocopying my bum and laminating it as a gift for my wife. No idea how she got that one in.

Ah, thats good to hear, will press on with what ive got at the moment then. Threw a wobbler before as I thought it had to have some meaning behind it!

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

I don't know what the joke is but I'd just be careful that the food joke won't upset bride and groom. They've likely spent a heck of a lot of money on it and also put quite a bit of time into trying to decide what would be the best food. At my wedding, I found that part took more time than guests probably appreciate.

It was only a little line like "Before we begin can we just have a moments silence..... for the 23 cows, 43 chickens and 300 prawns which sacrificed themselves for today's festivites." Again, not sure i'll use it and I most likely wont but just want it in my locker haha as I'd never heard that one before and thought it was quite amusing.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

Ahh, that's not so bad.

I thought it might have been something along the lines of "My prawn cocktail tasted a little ropey so I'll have to be quick with this speech before.....oh no!! *drop mike and run out of the room* "

Haha no nothing like that but I've decided against going with the joke at the start now anyway.

Think I'm going to try and condense the story I've got too as it feels like I'm going on a bit, or at least revise it so it flows better.