Best and worst wedding/best man speeches

liliesnlace85

What are the best and worst best man or wedding speeches you've witnessed?

Do you think it's better for someone to pull out a tearjerker or to say something funny to embarrass the bride or groom?

My brother is getting married later in the year, and although I don't plan to say anything I've just been thinking about what his best man might say and how awful it'd be if it didn't have the desired effect!

skivenov

The way I see it, leave the tears to the parents. You choose a best man because he's your mate and he makes you happy, so it's his job to provide a bit of light relief.

My mate was best man for his brother, and startted his speech. "Well, I'm not good at public speaking, so I prepared a few lines <sniff>, and having done those, I'm feeling rather good about this now...."

DKLS

Its vital to know your audience, last time I was best man, there was a lot of catholics and elderly in the audience, so regaling them with our adventures in Amsterdam were not appropriate.

liliesnlace85

Ha, @skivenov, that's pretty funny but I get @DKLS' point - that wouldn't be appropriate for some audiences

ellay864

At our wedding my 19yr old son gave me away and made a point of saying in his speech 'mum's never looked lovelier than she does today...though of course the hair and make-up do help'
But it was totally topped by 19yr old stepson who was best man...he said he'd looked for tips on what a best man's speech should include 'and it seems that details of the grooms past sexual adventures may feature...which is a bit weird for me seeing as I was a product of one of them' There was a lot of laughter after a rather stunned silence, with DH and I wondering what else he might come out with

Pinzy

I think as has been said, that the best man's job is to lighten the mood. Though I've seen a few best men get blubby on Don't Tell The Bride!

My OH was one of two best men for a friend's wedding, but the Groom had no embarrassing moments for them to talk about, so instead they made up a skit of how the bride & groom met, complete with wigs and a song at the end! It was brilliant, and someone said it was the best best man speech he'd ever seen

RainbowDrops

The best are short, to the points & heartfelt. 5 minutes is more than enough.
The worst are long rambling ones, full of cliches & jokes off the internet.

A gentle ribbing is ok, but full on embarrassing stories are just a bit cringeworthy. Also, the speaker should know their audience - tell stories that include everyone, rather than in jokes & hints about the stag etc.

joho

My brother gave me away and then did a fabulous speech! Everyone roared laughing and I never knew he had such wit and warmth and talent for public speaking in him. I well up thinking about everything he said - even though the nice things were edged with humour.

He said he was flattered to have been asked to give me away, but wondered why anyone would give away anything so beautiful (awwww). So he decided to put me on ebay! Classic model (cos of my age) with surprisingly good bodywork (thanks a lot) though this one is prone to blow a gasket (reference to me having a bit of a temper!). He was great!!

The best man though was terrible! He wrote a speech and then tried to ad-lib which didn't work. And his whole speech was based around him being the 'best' man rather than the Best Man, if you see what I mean. It was cringemaking in the extreme. And we have it on video to relive anytime we like.

If you're not used to public speaking then it needs to be short, simple, gentle ribbing and clean jokes! And no 'ad-lib'ing! Soberness is helpful too!

Having said about the clean jokes - my hubby was BM for friends getting married in Lindos which has a lovely old Acropolis. The guests contained several older, Irish Catholics. Husband made a joke about this holiday being the ideal time for any of the men to take their wives up the Acropolis! It took a few breathes before the elderly, Catholic aunts all burst into howls of laughter and cried their eyes out!!! :rotfl:

minerva_windsong

The worst best man's speech I have ever seen was at OH's brother's wedding. I think he picked the guy (an army friend) because he'd been his best man and it felt like 'returning the favour' - that's the only reason we can come up with anyway - but the speech was absolutely terrible. The guy got trashed before the ceremony, then carried on drinking at the reception, so it was very slurry, and then put back in a lot of the dodgy jokes and stories that OH's mum had sat down with him when he wrote it the night before(!) and made him take out.

So my advice is don't get drunk! One to settle your nerves is fine, but only if you know you can stop there - if you can't, don't have anything. It's partly why I'm a fan of speeches before the meal so it's out of the way and people can then concentrate on having a good time and not worrying about the speech. Also agree with the comments about knowing your audience - you do want funny in a best man's speech, but it has to be appropriate. And keep it short - five minutes doesn't feel that long to think about but when you have to talk for that amount of time it stretches out quite a bit!

Lagoon

I think honesty, and a script that's not gathered from every corner of the Internet, will go down well.

I attended a few weddings approximately three of four years ago. The first best man had clearly taken his speech from the web, but he carried it off well and it kept the room interested. Two weeks later I went to another wedding where three best men were sharing the speech. Not only was that complicated because rather than doing a section each they kept jumping in whilst another was talking, and reciting the speech sentence by sentence so that you couldn't really get into it - they'd also found all of the same jokes as the best man at the first wedding. Others enjoyed their speech, but if you've been to a few weddings then you end up sitting through the same terrible jokes multiple times, and it's getting more common.

All that said, nothing quite compares to a wedding speech I heard at a wedding I attended last year. The bride was pregnant and had another child. Her bridesmaids were all the orange-skin and blonde-hair types. One stood to speak, focused only on nights out partying with the bride and then congratulated her on her pregnancy with 'and it always shocked me that your first came out normal, considering the amount of times you end up collapsed in a drunken heap when you're pregnant, but that's why we love you!'. I don't think ANYONE knew what to do with that information.

FreelanceCynic

The best advice for a best mans speech is to keep it real. Don't copy jokes you found online, or fit names into templates.
You're a best man because you're the grooms friend. Use that. Don't tell jokes, tell funny stories about the groom and you.
Your job is to make the groom look good whilst also gently mocking him, and the best way to do that is just to be his friend.