A wedding speech is short, public and unusually emotional, which is why capable people lose their nerve over it. The structure below works for almost any role at the reception.
Know your job
Each speech has a purpose. The father of the bride welcomes guests and speaks about his daughter. The maid of honour or best man speaks about their friend and about the couple. The couple thank the people who made the day possible.
Knowing your job prevents the most common problem, which is two speeches covering the same ground.
Keep it to four or five minutes
Roughly 500 to 700 words. Nearly every speech that goes badly goes long. A short speech delivered warmly is remembered far better than a thorough one delivered at length.
Use a simple structure
Open by saying who you are and how you know the couple, because half the room does not know you.
Tell one story. Not three. One specific story that shows something true about the person you are speaking about, ideally something the room has not heard.
Turn towards the couple. Say what you see in them together and why it works.
Close with a wish and a toast. Give the room a clear signal to raise glasses.
Write about character, not chronology
A speech is not a biography. Nobody needs the school years, the gap year and the job history. Choose one moment that reveals who this person is and let it carry the whole speech.
Humour, handled carefully
Affectionate humour works. Humour at someone's expense does not, even when the person would find it funny in private. The audience includes grandparents, colleagues and children.
The test is simple: if a joke needs an apology or an explanation afterwards, cut it.
Acknowledge the people who are missing
If someone close has died, one respectful sentence is usually right. Keep it brief and warm, then move the room gently forward. Long tributes shift the tone of the evening in a way that is hard to recover.
Practise out loud, more than once
Read it aloud at least five times, including once to another person. Time it. Mark the places where you should pause. Notice which sentences you trip over and rewrite them in shorter words.
Print it in large type on cards. Number the cards.
On the night
Speak slower than feels natural. Look up between sentences. Hold the microphone close and low rather than at arm's length. If you become emotional, stop, breathe and carry on. The room is entirely on your side.
Avoid drinking much before you speak. Almost every regret about a wedding speech traces back to this.
What makes a speech land
The speeches people remember are not the polished ones. They are the ones where someone said something true and specific about a person they love, in front of everyone, without hedging.
That is a rare thing to do out loud, which is why it carries so much weight when it happens. Most of us go years without telling the people closest to us what they actually mean to us, and a wedding is one of the few occasions that gives us permission.
