How to prepare to design a best man speech

Best man speeches are among the most important parts of a wedding. Traditionally, together with the bride's and groom's parents, both the best man and the maid of honor are given the privilege to read a speech. If you have been asked to be the best man on a wedding, you'll have to do your best to create a great speech. This can be hard if it's the first time you are the best man for a wedding, therefore preparing early will help you acquire the necessary self-confidence and to take it easy.

The following guide is aimed at giving you a hand managing this significant duty, and have been written based on my personal experience.

What should you talk about in your best man speech?

As a rule of thumb, your speech should last a maximum of five minutes, so that other speakers will be given enough time for their own. The following suggestions should give you a hand in planning your speech:
- Start by greeting the wedding guests in the reception.
- Express your best wishes to the married couple.
- If you are a friend of the groom from childhood, you can share one or two anecdotes of how he was as a child or as a teenager. - Add some anecdotes about how the bride and groom knew each other, and, if you wish, add a final joke (I added some examples below).
- Renew your congratulations to the bride and groom, and propose a toast.

One-Liners are a great technique to make sure your audience keeps focused to what you say. Here are a few examples of what you can add to your speech.

Quotations
* I bought my wife a new car. She called and said, 'There's water in the carburettor'. - Henny Youngman
* My wife dresses to kill. - Henny Youngman
* It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks. She's not marrying the best man. - Anonymous
* Any fool can have a trophy wife. It takes a real man to have a trophy marriage. - Diane Sollee

* I can honestly say in all our years of friendship, I have never heard anyone question John's intelligence, to be perfectly honest I never heard anyone even mention any intelligence on John's part.
* I've know John a long time and am considered a bit of a father figure to him. * A man tells his wife: "Dear, I invited a friend of mine over for dinner tonight."
"What?" - the exasperated wife answers him - "Are you nuts? The house is a mess, I didn't go grocery shopping, the dishes are dirty, and I don't feel like cooking!"
"I know," - replies the husband calmly - "That's precisely why I invited him. * I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewellery.

Poems Work Great Too!
If you can't find any appropriate joke, or simply can't figure out what to write at all, you can use a poem in place of a "canonical" speech. Here are some examples, to give you an impression of how it could be like:

There are jobs large and small,
But none quite as lovely as Jenny,
I said, "John are you sure,
There are none you like more?"
He said "Right now I can't think of any!"
* Each man spoils the one he loves,
And gratifies her wishes.
The poor man dries the dishes.

Save Time With Speech Guides
Use pre-written speech samples to "cheat" and get your speech done even more quickly! To make your life simpler, you can take advantage of some best man wedding speech samples. You will find hundreds on the Internet, and I actually figured out that they really save a lot of time. You will be astonished by how many are available, and I'm sure will find one that you like. The effort invested checking them will be well invested, as the best ones will also contains invaluable tips on how to make your speech stunning and unique. More Tips And Recommendations - A short list of Do's and Don'ts
It doesn't matter how much effort you put into writing your speech, it's extremely important that you avoid some faux-pas that could ruin the party. * Plan Early
Hurrying everything to the last minute will make it much more difficult.
* Reharse the speech to the Bride and Groom to be
* Double check your jokes
Double check them and remember that you'll have a mixed public, with very young and older people alike.

DON'TS
* Don't get drunk before your speech.
It's understandable if you're anxious, but you should not exceed with drinks, or you'll ruin the party.
* Don't start talking about groom's past flirts or embarrassing moments
The site offers several good samplee of speeches and toasts, especially thought for the best man; additionally, you'll find interesting tips on how you can read your best man speech with confidence, a set of wedding toasts, hilarious quotations, one-liners and more. Note: I've been contacted by several gentlemen who left the speech to the last minute and therefore were in a hurry to create the speech. My web site is about my experience in that case, and includes a post on how to write a Best Man Wedding Speech at the last minute. If you find yourself in such trouble, I recommend even more the Speech Examples you'll get on the site, they will indeed save {your day|the day|you