Tips for a grooms speech

Everyone is on your side, all the people who are there are people you or your wife (or both of you) love and hopefully love you both too. Just say your thank yous, say something genuine to your bride and that's it.
 
The best tip I can give you is to figure out whatever it takes for you to feel confident in giving the speech.

For me, it was recording myself saying the speech and then using my drive to work to listen to the recording on loop, repeating it out loud until I had the thing ingrained in my soul. :p

If you’re nervous and have shaky hands, holding a piece of paper will make it really obvious (making you more nervous — it’s a viscous cycle). Similarly, reading it a couple of times on the morning of the big day is not enough to memorise it — you need to know that thing inside out and back to front.
 
If you don’t drink a small dose of propranolol is easy to get from a doctor to stop physical nervousness (shaky hands, voice etc).
 
The difference between a groom speech and a best man speech is that the audience are rooting for you as the groom and want you to do well. They’re waiting for the best man to slip up and are gunning for them.

Simple, heartfelt, short. Make sure you mention your new wife and how great she is.
 
Nitefly said:
I think this is mostly rubbish and, at the very least, rude. If you can’t be bothered to hear what the FOB, groom or bridesmaids / best man have to say then you don’t deserve to be there.

I would agree that there is no need for filler but the only circumstances where ‘going on for too long’ applies is it’s objectively really, really long (and boring).
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I went to 17 weddings in a year a couple of years back - I can confirm the grooms speech is never what people are waiting for, it's about saying thanks to people, you literally don't need to do anything else, don't over complicate it! Having been at a few where the groom keeps going and going you can see what works and what doesnt with the grooms speech
 
also don't forget if you have any gifts for the best men, ushers, flower girls, mothers etc; you can use your speech to bring them up and give them their gift / flowers.

When I did mine, I kept it reasonably short; the grooms speech is all about thanking every one for the day:

Comment on how beautiful the bride is and how great the day was; story about how you met, funny story about her etc.

thanking the parents (thank you for bringing her up, making her the beautiful woman you see now, allowing me to marry her <insert joke about she's now going to ask you for money, rather than dad> etc etc). Thanking the ushers, best men, and keying up the best man speech which is soon to follow. Give presents here, usually flows - bit boring for the majority.

Raise toasts, obviously to your bride, to your new in laws, to your family.

Hope you enjoy the evening;



No point in getting nervous - you know all of these people in the room. Then try to hide for the best man speech, I had two best man. Each had a speech. One does not like talking in front of groups, so fumbled his way through using props. The other doesn't care and made me get up and get involved in the speech. ****er.

Enjoy the day; Final bit of advice: Try to get some alone time with the wife on the day to take things in and enjoy the moment. 5-10 minutes is all it takes, you'll be moving from people to people for all of the day and you might not get the chance to have a moment to your selves; try to get that moment and just get away from everyone. With all the people, pictures, etc you might not get the chance for a private moment on what should be a happy day for you both :)
 
Hilly said:
Enjoy the day; Final bit of advice: Try to get some alone time with the wife on the day to take things in and enjoy the moment. 5-10 minutes is all it takes, you'll be moving from people to people for all of the day and you might not get the chance to have a moment to your selves; try to get that moment and just get away from everyone. With all the people, pictures, etc you might not get the chance for a private moment on what should be a happy day for you both :)
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Best advice in the thread.
 
If you have a good relationship with the in laws, it's nice to say stuff about being thankful for being accepted into their family etc. how much you appreciate all that crap.

Crack a couple of jokes out. As said, thank all the right people. Thank people for coming, you know people have traveled far and wide to attend and you appreciate it yada yada.

Bride/maids look gorgeous today and thank them for all their work in making the day special.

End on a slightly racist joke.
 
Nitefly said:
I can only really speak for best man’s speeches but the internet is so crap for things like this. All the “absolute do’s and don’ts....” only pay attention to them if you are literally squirming at the thought of doing the speech.

Just be genuine and sincere to your family and your wife. Don’t feel obliged to say anything you don’t want to. If the audience get bored by your speech then frankly, **** ‘em, they shouldn’t be there.

If you want a bit of structure:

First, thank the brides dad for his speech.

Say the obligatory “my wife and I...” and everyone will cheer “....thank you all for coming”.

Acknowledge people / family who have provided considerable support to either of you financial or otherwise. Usually this involves a nod to the parents. You can optionally make a toast to those people.

Say how you met your wife. One or two anecdotes.

Say how your wife makes you feel.

Toast your wife.

The end *thumbs up*
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pretty much this - especially the "my wife and I" bit. I've only done best man once at my brothers - not married meself but I was so worried about it that I practised it every chance I got. I did have a year to prepare though - so once I had the stories / structure down I just repeated over and over whenever I had a few minutes - in the shower etc. At first I was using those cheesy jokes templates but ditched it all and just spoke from the heart - I am not a great friend of my brother who was getting married and the BM role was a a bridge building exercise which made it harder to come up with stuff but yeah - I was reasonably cutting without being offensive / rude - more cheeky. Also I knew a lot of the people in the room ( our family made up like 75 - 80% of the guests ) so I was able to name drop a few names and have a go at them as well and that got a lot of laughs. Mainly though I remember being thankful I'd memorised / gone over it so much because I forgot to print out a copy of any notes and had to do the entire thing from memory, But it was like muscle memory at that point and it went really well. Would never do it again though.
 
Hilly said:
Enjoy the day; Final bit of advice: Try to get some alone time with the wife on the day to take things in and enjoy the moment. 5-10 minutes is all it takes, you'll be moving from people to people for all of the day and you might not get the chance to have a moment to your selves; try to get that moment and just get away from everyone. With all the people, pictures, etc you might not get the chance for a private moment on what should be a happy day for you both :)
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Same thing I tell all the couples I photograph. Make sure you take time for yourselves. The day is about you but you spend most of it apart mingling with other people.

I actually had to force a videographer to leave the room once so the bride and groom could cool down for 10 mins before their evening guests started turning up. it was 30'c+, outside wedding, we'd done an hour of videos/photos ending in their room in the castle so it was cool. Both were red and flustered, good friends of mine so I knew she was about ready to pop so left them alone. Came down 10 mins later, cooled down, happy and positive :)
 
Lots of good advice here so wont repeat it.

What I will add though......you probably aren't a stand up comedian so please don't try to be one. Same for the Best Man. A few jokes and a bit of craic is great if you can deliver it well but if you cant it will show so don't go OTT. Also you are probably in a room full of a wide range of ages and types of people, so the jokes that you may laugh at down the pub wont go down well with Granny in the corner and the deeply religious branch of the family....know your audience!

before my wedding when I was asking for advice I noted that for many the speeches disappear into a distant memory after the day unless they are absolutely brilliant (which is rare and tough to pull off) or very bad which seems more common. Everyone has stories of weddings where the speeches went down like a bomber over Berlin. Make sure you don't fall into that category! Better to be non-descript and forgotten about than tell the joke about the nun and the Alsatian that will shame the family for years to come.
 
As others have said, keep it short and thank those in your life and everyone for coming.
If you are not known for outstanding humour, leave it out. Let the Best man do that bit as it removes pressure from you, you'll have enough to do that day as it is.
 
Start with... "After having over a thousand sexual relationships... in the last year, I decided to ask my wife to marry me"... the someone take a photo of everyones faces! :D

Ok, I'm joking, don't say that.. unless you want a divorce immediately.
 
AHarvey said:
Same thing I tell all the couples I photograph. Make sure you take time for yourselves. The day is about you but you spend most of it apart mingling with other people.

I actually had to force a videographer to leave the room once so the bride and groom could cool down for 10 mins before their evening guests started turning up. it was 30'c+, outside wedding, we'd done an hour of videos/photos ending in their room in the castle so it was cool. Both were red and flustered, good friends of mine so I knew she was about ready to pop so left them alone. Came down 10 mins later, cooled down, happy and positive :)
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Exactly, it's a little thing but often gets missed due to perceived responsibilities of hosting your big day and sharing with others.
 
Raymond Lin said:
The groom's speech is the easiest one.

You just need to be sweet, genuine and complimentary. You don't need to be funny or expected to be. Simple and short.

You can tell a story about how you guys met if you like, but if it is simply a drunken night out, leave those out, drunk stories are only funny to those who were a part of it. If it is romantic, go nuts.
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Absolutely this.. Leave the pressure of trying to be funny to the Best Man. Sit back, watch him stew slowly.

I'm currently preparing a speech for my daughters wedding. I have a just over year but it's nearly all done.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Absolutely this.. Leave the pressure of trying to be funny to the Best Man. Sit back, watch him stew slowly.
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Reminds me .... Last wedding I went to my youngest (a year old suffering from chickenpox) decided to go full howl mode just as the best man's speech was starting. I did the decent thing and took her out. She screamed for an hour at me before collapsing into sleep but the rest of the guests still say I got the better deal compared to sitting through his speech.
 
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