Best Man

The speech in its entirety, given during the reception after the ceremony:

"I know it's customary at this stage of the proceedings for the Best Man to get up and give a speech that is basically designed to both embarass the groom and entertain the gathered throng, but lemme tell ya....when the groom happens to be your father, the task takes on a new twist. So, despite the wealth of information I could dip into, I'm going to take the high road....not just because I happen to be classy guy, but because it's Saturday night, and I don't want to get grounded. So with that, may I ask you all to please raise your glasses to the happy couple. May their years ahead be happy."

That was it. You tell me what was offensive about it. Moreover, I don't recall anyone gasping or pulling me aside, telling me how out of line it was.

Your dad didn't have any friends who could be the best man?

Time for another beer, then.

There wasn't much else I was held responsible for. But read a book and find out all the things a best man is supposed to do, and at least offer to do those things.

A very insightful observation there, Aja. He may have used them all up at his previous weddings. That said, he may have just been being magnanimous in choosing me as his best man. I don't think either of us expected it to turn out this way.

Yeah, but he knows about their children, right?

Ummmm.....`cos he's an idiot? Seriously, Aja, I've been asking myself that question for the better years of my life.

Jeez Louise, I'd *want* jokes at my wedding! You need to be able to laugh, this is supposed to be a happy occasion, so let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...er, wait.

I've never been a bridesmaid, thank god (what does the maid of honor have to do at the wedding?) but mr teeny has been a groomsman at a couple of weddings:

1) the guy we shared an apartment with our junior year of college: bride was/is a total melodramatic pretentious twat, delivered her vows in a fake british accent. All groomsmen ruptured various organs holding in laughter. Best man toast was right on the line of insincere wishes for happiness because we all wanted her to get lost and leave our friend be.

2) mr teeny's little brother: his other little brother was best man and dropped the ring during ceremony , rupturing once again commenced. At reception when speech time came around, mr teeny was only brother present. He ran around like crazy looking for two missing brothers, found them outside smoking dope. Best man toast was slighly incoherent.

My little sister is wise- when she got married, she said "I would be asking you to be my maid of honor, but I know you'd be much happier being the photographer- would you take all the photos?" and had one of her college friends as the maid of honor instead. So at the reception her friend gave a wonderful speech... & I took 30ish rolls of film & was in heaven.

Their best man got way drunk on Champagne before his toast & gave a rather quiet little "Good luck" toast instead of the longer one he'd been practicing, but it was all good.

http://www.wendyk.org/popssm.jpg

i did it anyway, cos i'm a uselessly loyal sap and researched a little cos his wife is fijian indian and got some nice words in hindi and even bought an op-shop suit.

and i felt fucked until the bride smiled and started clapping at the hindi bit.

Jokes are OK at weddings in the UK as everyone expects a bit of humour in a best man's speech. Just don't make them offensive, or too rude for the assorted grannies. But I thoroughly second the latter bit of advice - mr ailsa's mum stood up and made a speech at my wedding (note - mother of the groom speeches are not the done thing at ANY wedding) which was all about her and her sons and didn't mention me at all. My mum (my ally in the fight against my mother-in-law) and I spent about half an hour in the toilets crying, laughing at what a selfish bitch she was, and seething that I hadn't had the guts to get up and walk off to the toilet half way through her speech. She asked me something at the end of the speech to set her up for a "joke" about how handsome and wonderful her son was, and I will regret to my dying day that I didn't reply "sorry, can you repeat that, I wasn't listening to you".

It's all about the couple. Remember that, and you'll be fine. I've kept my brother-in-law's notes from his speech at our wedding which was very good if you want a couple of ideas...

Oh, and similarly, if you are having a friend as a photographer, make it clear what photos you want taken, and that if (s)he's taking his/her own photos then you aren't paying for those. I'm in less than 30% of my wedding photos - my husband's glamorous blonde cousin is in more than I am. I realise she is more photogenic, but IT WAS MY BLOODY WEDDING!!! There isn't a single photo of me with my bridesmaids or, perhaps more importantly, me with both my parents.

Other than that, it was great. Really.

There are lots of wedding sites out there that list traditional photos to take (cutting the cate, dance with father, groom with family, etc). It's v. helpful to print out the list, get the bride/groom to highlight the "DO NOT MISS" ones, and keep it tucked into yr film bag as a reminder.

I had to do a speech I hadn't even planned and I was tipsy, but apparently I did well, not that I remember a word I said I was so nervous.

Luckily I got out of having to organise/attend a bucks night for the rest of the blokes, as my friend threw a hissy when they mentioned strip clubs and so it never happened, ha!

I have rather unconventional friends :)

Hey, very cool. :-) There are two people I'm thinking of asking being joint best persons should I ever get married, one male and one female. That seems right and proper to me.

Thanks for the kind words, though.

And Alex, that was one of the best best man speeches I've heard (ie witty and brief), you're right, he is an idiot.

This speech writing shit is really tough. How do I write a speech full of embarassing stories when all of them are more incriminating towards me than the groom?

i can only offer sympathy, best man speech is a tough gig, seen some guys bomb as well. not looking forwad to when it's my turn, especially since i'll be writing my speech about my brother, who i've only seen drunk about 5 times, and who doesn't do anything more incriminating than be sick because he's a lightweight.

lol i thought you were up on this

http://radiofacts.com/2011/02/01/the-best-man-reunion-dinner/

We watched the movie ‘The Best Man; on HBO this weekend, even though we owned a copy on DVD. We thought we need more movies like this as we stood up and did the electric slide at the end! We loved the men and women n this movie! Taye Diggs, Regina Hall, Sanaa Lathan, Harold Perrineau, Melissa DeSousa, Monica Calhoun, Director Malcolm D. Lee, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, and Terrence Howard were all at their best in this movie. The women were so stylish and the men made our heart almost beat out of our chest. I mean Morris Chestnut licking his lips,Terrance Howard playing the guitar and applying garters with his mouth, Taye Diggs being Taye Diggs, and Harold Perrineau cheekbones and sensitive aura. Goodness Gracious.

sry

expectations are running high for n hilarious/incriminating best man speech from me in august, but i'd much rather keep it sincere, for the couple and quite boring, really. Any resources or experiences?

cos i don't want it to be all *that* dry, either

have only really seen good speeches, childhood anecdotes are good, teen drinking, failure with unnamed mystery and unknown far away completely forgotten past gfs.

my brother was other bro's best man and just milked the fact that bride was english for lots of "ho ho" irish/english jokes.

by logic i should be his best man but i wouldn't be surprised if he bypassed me...was never considered as best man for any of my close friends, nor would i be likely to be i reckon!

cos you keep mentioning ex gf's as a speech topuc, quite possibly

unsubtle flattery of the bride always goes over well, usually in the form of "so-and-so couldn't even ties his shoes before he met her"

also a compare/contrast in the form of a stupid decision he made pre-relationship vs the eminently wise decision he made to ask her to marry him

some anecdote about a situation where you realized she was The One, whether it was a conversation with him or some activity you witnessed where they really CLICKED

also consider if they have any inside jokes that are really cute and play that up in the "look at how adorable they are" stakes

if there's a particular bad habit he has that she reinforces that is harmless, build a joke around that

(this is basically a hodgepodge of suggestions taken from the two best man speeches I've made + various others I've witnessed over the years; really, as long as you appear happy and you gush about the couple, everyone will think your speech is great)

that's good general stuff, tho dude is ubercompetent high achiever with v few skeletons, unfortunately.

well then, run with some examples of all of the excellent decisions he's made (including of course asking you to be the best man), ending with asking her to marry him, then follow up by saying how she exhibits her own amazing ability to make great decisions by saying yes

ew yank sincerity

See, told you i didn't want it *that* dry

tho i could spin her decision making as lamentably lacking on that front i suppose

haha I was going to suggest that but it runs counter to the "shamelessly flatter the bride" advice

I lucked out big time by my best man deciding to go with 3 best men when he subsequently got married - I planned the stag do, his brother did a speech in English, and another friend did a speech in Greek (his wife being Greek, not just because he felt like it). Thereby excusing me from speech duties, which is probably just as well really.

he's kept me away from everything but stag/speech, probably because i'm flaky as fuck and herself would object.

few anti-english jokes can't go astray though, regardless of nationalities present.

i dunno, her side are v prod, he was born in london with relatives coming over.

Dunno if you remember my13s dung@n from rattlebag? He's fr in law fyi.

yeah i do actually. always quite liked him. he did the afternoon news show too for a time didn't he? before it became hosted by that really annoying coughlan.

i dunno tbh, he's been a fixture on the radio forever tho.

Talk about yr informed criticism if he starts givin me feedback tho

i think you should take colonel poos advice and give the speech in greek

toying with giving it as gaeilge just to confuse the west brit dub contingent but their private schooling undoubtedly gives them the edge, they'd end up mocking my poor irish grammar amongst themselves. In french.

i generally feel that the best language to give best man speeches in is "stinking drunk" but yknow, i would

his bride is an excitable type, i'mma be on my best behaviour until i sit down from the speech.

All bets off after that, obv

OK, I got to give the best man speech in a few weeks. LOL at me worrying about something that no-one will remember 3 minutes after it's over (unless I bomb), but still. This isn't exactly a small wedding, either - 200+ people according to the groom. I've been stressing about this for a month. Fuck public speaking, imo.

1 or 2 minutes is sufficient, right? I can do that long, not much longer though.

tell a story, that will pad it out.

i was co-best man (long story) at my brother's wedding and probably made one of my best attempts at public speaking ever, but was still nervous enough that i totally forgot to say the 'kicker' last line of what i'd planned on saying and just kind of shrugged and sat down.

imo if you really don't want to do it but feel like you have to, think of the craziest thing you could do/say that wouldn't like ruin the wedding or make you a laughing stock, or have the funniest person you know write something for you.

Thanks all. I have a speech prepared, just worry about the little things, like some potential light-hearted potentially offensive remarks that I may or may not use.

For example, I first came to know the groom in my 9th grade English class. I never spoke to him that whole year, but he still made an impression, making the class laugh being a bit as a class-clown. The only other thing I remember from that class is our teacher showing a televised version of Romeo and Juliet where we got to see Juliets "boobies". I was going to use that as an opening sort of joke to how we became great friends. I would obviously set that up appropriately, but it may be too crude. I know and love his family, and their not prudes, but still.

I got mushy shit to say about the groom and bride afterwords, so I wanted to be light-hearted at first to not get too serious. Is that the right angle though? I know I'm too obsessed with this, but there are a lot of smart mofos on this board, and any advice is appreciated.

my brother asked me to do this for his wedding, sometime next year...gonna be fun.

start risque, do the mush briefly, finish on a zinger imo.

btw i was incredible, i was fighting off hollywood producers and besotted bridesmaids all night.

Enjoy it, it's a blast.

one or two mins is a little short, but if you prepare three or four mins it'll run longer once you're up there.

Including applause, requests and encores i spoke for two hours flat, they were passing unconscious chicks down to the front of the room like it was a michael jackson gig. BOO-YA

writing the speech for my brother's wedding now.

surely someone in the history of all weddings ever has already started a speech with "the oxford english dictionary defines wedding as the process of removing unwanted vegetation from a garden"

and yet...

Lol. How did you fare six years ago? (re-reading this thraed)

it is the same brother! due to some unforeseen stuff (health etc) it was a v long engagement.

that's a great start imo, i'd go with that

it does sound like something that's been done before but i doubt anyone will give a hoot.

Def a good start imo!

Do it