Best Man Toast - How to give the greatest best man toast ever

Writing a Best Man Toast

When asked to be the best man at a wedding, you might immediately have mixed feelings. While it is always nice to have someone think highly enough of you to want you standing up for him, reciting the best man toast is not always a pleasant experience. For a few minutes, you will become the centerpiece of the entire wedding and what you do with your time could be one of the wedding’s most memorable moments. At the same time, giving a less than stellar toast could be a source of great embarrassment that your friends will never allow you to live down.

The good news is that a best man toast is not as difficult as you might think. Although you do need to incorporate some creativity into your toast, it is not like you have to write a Shakespearean level drama to keep people’s attention for a few minutes. Most of what you will say has already been written for you, since it comes from your experiences with the bride and groom. As long as you can explain these experiences in an articulate manner, your speech should become an enjoyable experience for everyone attending the wedding.

Before You Write

Before you can begin writing your actual best man toast, you might want to have some ideas that you wish to include. While it might seem like a high school exercise, brainstorming does a great deal of good in this situation because it gives you the chance to get your ideas down onto paper. Begin by thinking about how well you know the bride and groom. Since you have been selected as the best man, you likely know the groom very well and have been given the opportunity to get to know the bride over the years as well. Next, you can look at the reasons why you have been chosen to give this speech in the first place. You probably have some wonderful memories with the groom, which can all come in handy when writing.

Write down a description of both the bride and groom using the first words that come to your mind. Consider how much the groom has changed for the better since meeting the bride, since this can be included in the speech. All good speeches have a meeting story, so remember how they met and how the groom first told you about this wonderful woman he had met.

Next, you can focus on yourself a little bit, as you can begin giving some advice to the newly weds. If you are married, this gives you a great opportunity to share some humorous advice about married life. You might want to write down some stories that show many of the groom’s characteristics. Write down as many ideas as possible, even if they seem inappropriate, since you can weed them about before you actually write the speech. If you have more ideas that you need for your best man toast, it becomes much easier to put into words.

Starting Off

Always begin your best man toast by introducing yourself to the audience. While many of the people might already know you, there are sure to be relatives from out of town who will not. When introducing yourself, include your relationship to the groom and how long you have known him. Once again, you are a complete stranger to many of the people in the room, so do not assume that they have heard of you before. To get people interested in the speech, start off with a short joke or a funny quote about married life. This joke should not be risqué, but should rather be used to break the ice. Once you get that first laugh, the rest of the speech becomes much easier to complete.

Before going too far, you might want to acknowledge whoever is hosting the wedding reception. If the bride’s parents are paying for everything, this is a good time to inform everyone of that fact. If the bride and groom are paying for everything themselves, however, do not mention anything, since it could embarrass the parents.

Into the Middle

The middle is the meat of your best man toast and is where all of the stories that you wrote down previously will do you some good. You want to make your speech as light as possible through this portion, so you can include a slightly embarrassing story from the groom’s past. Make sure that it is nothing too embarrassing, as you do not want his new family to disown him before they even get started. It might be funny to include stories about how much the groom has changed since meeting the bride. These stories usually get a laugh, especially if you can portray the bride as someone who has made the groom into a much better person.

Although you probably know the groom much better, it is a good idea to include the bride in your best man toast. As this point, you can give your first impressions of her and how much she has brought to your group of friends. This brings balance to the toast, rather than it becoming a roast of the groom. If you can find any memorable quotes about marriage, you can also include them in this portion of the toast. Do not speak for too long, however, as most people just want to get on with the rest of the night. No one is here to listen to you all night, so say your piece and move on. As long as you speak from your heart, however, you should handle this portion just fine.

During this middle portion of the speech, there are a few things that you must avoid at all costs. For starters, never speak of ex-girlfriends. While this might be something funny to mention during a private conversation with the groom or on his bachelor party, you do not want to bring it up during the wedding. Secondly, since there are probably kids in the audience, keep the subject matter age appropriate. Some things might go over a child’s head, but other things will not. Unless you are certain of the difference, keep anything borderline to yourself.

In Conclusion

Most people wrap their speeches with a toast or a blessing to the bride and groom. You will raise your glass and everyone in the room will follow, which is what actually makes the best man toast. Take a drink for a job well done and you are done with your toast.

Tips

Write your speech down on a notepad or on some cards. You want to keep your speech short, so if you have entire sheets of paper with your speech on them, you might want to shorten it down slightly. Make sure that you practice your speech a few times before delivering it, just so you have an idea of how long it will take and how it will sound. You might want to have a friend or two listen to you deliver your best man toast beforehand, so that they can give you some feedback.

You are going to be nervous before giving your best man toast, so you should focus on the volume of your voice. Some people tend to mumble, speak too quickly or speak too softly when they get nervous, which can ruin the experience entirely. No one wants to listen to you race through a speech that they can barely understand, so tell yourself to slow down and enjoy the experience.

Avoid drinking too much alcohol before you deliver your best man toast. While a couple of drinks might help to calm your nerves, drinking too much can lead to you slurring your words, or perhaps saying something that you will regret. Watch the movie “Old School” for an example of what not to do during a speech.

While you will have a notepad or cards in front of you during the speech, do not read right from it. Once you get reading from a card, it takes the personal touch away from it. Your head will stay down if you are reading from a card, which does not look good to the audience. Rather than reading your best man toast directly from a card, jot down notes on your pad and adlib the speech based on these notes. This makes the speech sound less scripted and helps you to maintain eye contact with your audience.

If you are struggling too much, do not be afraid to end the speech rather abruptly by congratulating the bride and groom and wishing them the very best. If you cannot get through your speech properly, it becomes an awkward situation for everyone involved. You can save yourself some stress if you choose to keep it simple, without trying to do too much.

Your Speech

Remember that the best man toast for your situation is much different from anyone else’s. Some families are extremely traditional and will want a speech that depicts those values, while other families will appreciate something that is a little more modern. As long as you know your audience and speak from the heart, there is very little that can go wrong with your best man toast.