Wedding speech (Groom) advice and tips?

samwilzrhcp

Getting married in 2 weeks, and i have only just started preparing my speech.
So does anybody have any useful advice or any tips on what to and what not to include in my speech. I'm not one for all the soppy stuff so i have thought about keeping it light hearted and funny. I am not one for being the centre of attention usually, but its a big day and it will be all about me (and my partner obviously) and i will only do it once in my life.

krustylouise

There's tonnes of good (and bad) examples on you7ube. Why don't you have a scout about?

Top_Girl

Bride
Any children
Her parents
Your parents
Bridesmaids/matrons of honour/flower girls/ ring bearer
Best man and ushers
Any other special people
Bride again

Toast

arbrighton

brother in law apparently didn't sort his til the morning of the day itself! He talked about the proposal and how amazing bride, thanked her parents etc

McKneff

Thank everyone for coming, especially xxxx (the bride) always bears a laugh....

meritaten

talk for a few minutes on how beautiful your bride is, how amazing, how wonderful and how honoured you are that she agreed to marry you - then turn to her and say 'Right, Ive said what you told me to - now am I forgiven for the 'stag do'!

don't forget to praise the staff of the venue (only if they deserve it). it will pay dividends later if things go T!ts up.
but the grooms speech should be shorter than the best mans! (its really his job to thank the bridesmaids etc. yours to thank her parents and yours, and if you have got them flowers or gifts now is the time to present them).
and it goes down really well if you can 'come over all emotional - so keep your hanky ready!)

dandelionclock30

Make it shortish as well, nothing worse at weddings than hearing people giving long rambling speaches. I'd go with short and funny.

samwilzrhcp

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Make it shortish as well, nothing worse at weddings than hearing people giving long rambling speaches. I'd go with short and funny.

That's what im going for i think.

Paulaviki

My husband didn't write a speech and just spoke from the heart on the day.

I think you have to be fairly confident to do it this way, but if you aren't my advice would be to avoid cliches and obvious jokes. People will have heard them before and would rather see someone nervous but genuine. Just don't out too much pressure on yourself, it's only a tiny part of your day!

codemonkey

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Make it shortish as well, nothing worse at weddings than hearing people giving long rambling speaches. I'd go with short and funny.

^^ This.

I was at a wedding recently where the speeches went on for almost 2 hours - or maybe a decade, it was hard to tell which. By the time the Father of the Bride had finished - 50 minutes - everyone had run out of drinks and the water jugs had been emptied. It was hot in there but it seemed rude to get up and go to the bar for more water. It was also deathly boring because several stories were repeated by the Father of the Bride and the Groom, so perhaps its worth checking what the Father of the Bride is planning to cover to avoid this.

Nicki

samwilzrhcp wrote: »

Getting married in 2 weeks, and i have only just started preparing my speech.
So does anybody have any useful advice or any tips on what to and what not to include in my speech. I'm not one for all the soppy stuff so i have thought about keeping it light hearted and funny. I am not one for being the centre of attention usually, but its a big day and it will be all about me (and my partner obviously) and i will only do it once in my life.

You don't have to go overboard on the soppy stuff, but your bride will remember forever anything nice you do say about her in that speech and will notice if you don't put anything at all personal in about her