Wedding speeches books

Jim02

Hi,

Can anybody recommend any books offering advice on wedding speeches? With suitable emphasis on the groom's speech ideally!

Thanks

Jim

Mrs_Thrift

Hi Jim,

Congratulations on your forthcoming wedding! ;D

Not being a groom, I was very happy to leave the speeches to the chaps when we got married, but I did sneak a look at some "wedding speeches tips" on sites such as confetti.co.uk.

The thing that struck me most was how formulaic the speeches seemed. IMHO the best speech includes only what you personally want to say, not what you think you should say.

Saying that, the groom's speech generally takes the form of a thanks and a toast, but taking that as a very basic starting point, you can go any way you want.

Personally, i think short and sweet is best, and for our wedding we actually had just toasts, rather than full speeches - by my Dad, a Groomsman and the groom - at the cutting of the cake, which we did before the meal, so that the men didn't have to worry about putting together a long speech and they could relax during the meal knowing "their bit" was over.

When is your big day?

Jim02

The wedding is on July 23rd.

I've seen books that have one-liners and so on, and I agree, that sort of thing can very easily sound processed. I don't want to make a long speech, but I would like to say a few words to thank people. I don't want to just stand up and reel off a list of people that I'm thanking etc., so I'm looking for ideas on how to structure the speech more than anything.

aussielle

Have a look here for some inspiration, grooms are down at the bottom of the list

Mrs_Thrift

Aarrgh! I wrote a long reply about how all 3 speeches / toasts were structured at our recent wedding, and it didn’t work and I lost it!

So here’s more or less what it said:

Starting with a mention of “My wife and I” always goes down well!

My husband started his speech / toast by thanking everyone for sharing our day with us, then thanked our parents, the Bridesmaid and Groomsmen and a general “everyone else who has helped else so much.” This avoided listing people, or risking missing anyone out. It also meant that, for example, we didn’t have to highlight the fact we’d had a load of help from some people and not from some others that you might expect help from (trying to put that delicately!)

I think he ended with a toast to “Friends and Family.”

A Groomsman then made (I think) a mention of wishing us a happy marriage or something along those lines, then again thanked everyone for coming, especially those that had travelled to be there. He ended with a toast to those who couldn’t be there: “Absent Friends.”

Then my Dad finished with lots of lovely things about how he was pleased to officially welcome Mr Thrift into the family, and how he knows we will have a long happy marriage (although he did start by pretending he was going to tell an embarrassing story about me and my Bridesmaid as teenagers, but he didn’t) He then ended with a toast to “The Bride & Groom.”

We obviously had fairly short speeches / toasts and you might not want them as brief, but I hope it helps a little.

Good luck with the rest of the wedding plans.

tiff

My husband used one when he was Best Man. It was by Bob Monkhouse, there are a few different versions on Amazon.

gordyffc

Mitch Murray's One-liners for Weddings - excellent book covering all you need to know. Used it as a guide for my speech.

Should be available in most book stores.

Freebie_Hunter_2

GEt the book for free - join your local library!

I hired out some great up to date speech and duty books for Mr FH and his gents. They came in really useful, cost nothing and you can return the so no more unwanted clutter!