Help!! Grooms wedding speech!!!

A question about : Help!! Grooms wedding speech!!!

Hi, Im getting married on Saturday and have to do a speech and im really Packing it!
The trouble is im quite shy when it comes to talking infront of groups of people as i gabble and talk drival.
Been looking on www.hitched.co.uk at speeches and the ones on their are really funny and clever and something im no good at in front of people.
Anybody got any good advice to help me get though this?

Best answers:

• Congratulations btw!
  Firstly I would say have a drink! But not too many! You don't want to slur!
  Don't they say to try and imagine everyone naked when your talking. Try and avoid looking at the attractive females though in case something pops up that you can't control!
  Just practice it over and over! Have you got anything together yet? Why not post it on here! :confused:
• First of all, congratulations.
  When i got married, 4 and a half years ago, hubby was bricking it too, about the speech. He is very shy, and even hates talking on the phone to people, i.e. renewing his car insurance, stuff like that, he gets all tongue tied.
  He went onto www.hitched.co.uk and cobbled together a speech made up of bits he liked from some of the speeches on there and sort of fine tuning it to suit us, if you see what i mean.
  If i can remember correctly, (seems like a lifetime ago now ), him and his best man spent an evening on the net doing the above for both their speeches.
  He then had a small piece of paper with about 7/8 keywords on it to jog his memory on the day. He just placed this on the table in front of him and referred to it when he needed to.
  Good luck with everyhing and try not to stress - easier said than done i know - the day will go so fast, try and enjoy it!
  I made an off the cuff speech in my wedding, wasn't planning to do one, but then i've always been the gobby one of the two of us - well one of us has to be!!
• Might be an idea to write your speech down.....index cards are small enough to be put in an inside pocket but large enough to be useful.
  Otherwise if you don't want to write the whole speech down, right key points so your memory can be jogged about what you want to say.
  Don't rush ... take your time ........
  I seem to remember my husband ending his speech by saying something like "as I mean to start my married life as I mean to go on, I'll let Mountainofdebt have the last word"
  Wouldn't have minded but he didn't tell me he was going to do that so I was the one waffling on!
• Meant to say congratulations as well!
• My advice is to do what your good at and if your not good at public speaking then accept it. If your not good at telling jokes, then don't try to be funny, just write it down, highlight the bits you need to remember and speak from the heart, it'll shine through!!
  Good luck and congrats, I do know what your on about, I got married 4 weeks ago!
• Hi, Martin's asked me to post this in these circumstances: I've asked Board Guides to move discussions from the MoneySaving boards if they're not related to MoneySaving to help everyone find the MoneySaving tips and discussion quicker (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to Discussion Time/The Arms. If you have any questions about this policy please email abuse@moneysavingexpert.com.
• The trouble is when I'm in front of a small group i am quite funny and very chatty but I'm so nervous about being in front if 90 people that I'm scared that if i did try and be funny it will just full flat on it's face and I'll end up looking like a prat! Thanks for your advice, i am listening, trying to jot a few ideas down.
  It's took me 2 Hours to write Ladies and Gentleman so far!
• Keep it basic, if you know your not good at it don't do it.
  So your not giving a speach, calmer already?
  Start by saying on behalf of my wife & I, then stop everyone WILL laugh, it's a promise. Then say you thank everyone for coming, thank your bride for making you the happiest man in the world (pause) then thank the bridesmaids and say how nice they look - look at them (your bride, the bridesmaids) when you say it, your talking to them NOT giving a speach or talking to anyone else in the room.
  It'll take minutes, it's not a speach, your talking to one person at a time, your bride, the maids etc..but standing up.
  People are never so generous in spirit as they are on your wedding day - no matter what you do people will you to get it right, really don't worry, and don't do it if your not comfortable.
• I want to add the fact my father-in-law cut his comb over of yesterday for the wedding, he's had it 30 years!, got to think of a funny way to add that in.
• Congratulations. I used to also be a shy guy who would always avoid public speaking, but then I made a conscious decision to try and challenge myself and speak more often in public. Net result, I ended up MC'ing my sister's wedding, which I never would have done a five or ten years ago.
  First of all, accept that you're nervous, but try channeling it. Even the most competent and eloquent public speakers 'brick it' before they speak. But try channeling those nerves into excitement and adrenalin. Also, pretend that you're acting a part, and that all you are doing is performing a role. Think about what sort of character you are, and you are now acting out that role.
  But above all else, have fun. This is your day (and the missus), and it's your speech. There are only two people in the room that you have to entertain. One is you, the other is the person you just married.
  I hope you have a great day and congrats again.
• Could someone tell if their is a order to thank people when doing a speech and when you are doing speech in which order to people read them out, im wondering who is before and after me! cheers for your help so far BTW!
• Congrats mate.
  I got married in December.
  Its up to you the order , I swapped mine at the last minutes cos my mates were giving my best man a lot of grife so I put him 1st to get it out of the way for him (at his request).
  I'm also the same I dont like big crowds but opperate fine for a small audience.
  I had a small list of people who needed thanking, then ad libbed it from there wasnt sure what I was gonna say but got away with it completely.
  The comb-over joke.
  *groom stands up*
  Hello and thanks for coming, now you think I may be nervous but I'm clearly not as nervous as (fil) as the stress has made him go bald.......and seemingly over night too.
  One other thing, when I stood up I got a massive cheer and round of aplause which really made me feel as though they were all on my side that settled me a lot, and I'm sure it will for you.
  Good luck and enjoy it matey, its too sodding expensive to NOT enjoy.
• I got married in April and was bricking it like yourself. It's actually okay though and in the end I found myself enjoying it. Everyone wants to see you do well, so they are all very supportive. And they don't really expect you to be funny, so there's no pressure to chuck in loads of jokes - the odd gentle one liner goes down better, particularly as you will probably have quite a broad audience.
  I wrote my own speech by breaking it up into sections first, then writing a couple of lines for each section and then finally trying to link each bit together.
  The basic headings were;
  1. Thank everyone for coming, especially XXX for travelling all the way from wherever.
  2. Thank the brides parents / family.
  3. Thank my own family.
  4. Thank my best man - few subtle jokes about his speech taht he is about to give.
  5. Thank my bride
  6. Thank the flower girls
  7. Toast the bridesmaid.
  Tips I would give you are;
  Think about having the speeches first. Like Nelly said, you've probably paid a lot of money for this meal - you might as well enjoy it without worrying about public speaking.
  Practice it on someone. You'll feel like a bit of a plonker, but it helps. I wrote down so many things that sounded good on paper but sounded awful out loud. And the only bit I fluffed on the day was the bit I didn't practice.
  Don't learn it word by word - treat it like telling a joke - just remember your basic points and talk around them - it'll sound more natural.
  Leave gaps for people to react. You'll find them laughing and awwing and you need to give them time to get back to listening. Drink some water every couple of sentences.
  An alternative joke about the haircut (I take it he isn't going to be touchy about this?) - when your are thanking the bride's parents you could say "I know MIL in particular has been waiting a long time for this wedding - and not just so that FIL would get his hair cut"
  There's an excellent website I found - I'll try and dig it out for you again. From memory, hitched.co.uk didn't have a huge amount on groom's speeches.
  Best of luck - and enjoy yourself!
• Congratulations
  You don't actually HAVE to give a speech. It is your wedding and if you don't want to, don't do it! The wedding police are not going to lock you up for not following tradition!
  At ours, we did the speeches first - which was a great idea and took the heat off everyone. Our best man really didn't want to give a speech, so he didn't. Just thank everyone for coming and thank your bride for being gorgeous. Or let her do the speech?
• Thank you all for your help, i have pened together a little speech and could do with some constructive advice with it, here goes:
  Ladies & Gentlemen, I don't want to take up too much of your valuable drinking time, so I'll be as quick as I can.
  I have been told that a good speech should be like a miniskirt…..
  Short enough to be interesting but long enough to cover the essentials
  With this in mind I will try to be brief.
  On behalf of my Wife and I, We would like to say thank you all for coming and sharing our special day with us.
  And also don't forget those family and friends who could not make it or have past away, That they are here today, but only in our hearts …. let us remember them on this occasion.
  Firstly I would like to thank Chris and Sandra, my new in-laws, for all the help (both organising and financially) that they have given us in arranging this reception, you both have really helped it be the day that it is.
  And I'd also like to thank them personally for all the kindness and generosity they have shown me over the last 4.5 years and for making me feel so welcome in your family
  I also have to thank them both for bringing up such a beautiful and intelligent daughter. Hannah is a lovely person. She deserves a good husband.
  So I thought I'd best marry her before she found one!
  I'd also personally like to thank Chris for shaving off that awful comb over after 30 years especially for today.
  I would also like to thank both my mum and dad for their help and support, mum for moaning about wearing a hat and dad for moaning about wearing a suit!, no really thanks your all your help over the years, you made me the man I am… bet you wish you tried harder now!
  To both our mums, we have a little thank you from both of us. (Flowers to mums)
  Thank you to Chris Dykes for making the beautiful flowers and wedding cake. I can only imagine the time and effort that went into making them and the cake looks absolutely delicious & beautiful, we both thank you so much.
  Talking of "delicious & beautiful (Pause look briefly towards bride, then towards bridesmaids, then...) the ushers Kevin and Andrew, are neither, and neither have they any prior experience as bouncers, but it's fairly obvious that they've done a terrific job at handling the paparazzi today and I for one, haven't seen even one Hello! Magazine photographer on the premises all day so well done lads.
  The biggest thank you, of course goes to my beautiful wife, Hannah.
  I can honestly say I was stunned when I saw how gorgeous you looked walking down the aisle this afternoon, I'm really the luckiest man in the world and I thank you so much for saying yes to me and becoming my wife and joining the Carpenter clan.
  Finally, one of my most pleasant duties today is to thank and propose the toast to the bridesmaids. Chloe, Kim, Kristy, Lisa, Shannon and Abbie for doing a brillant job today and I am sure you will all agree with me that they all look lovely.
  Ladies and Gentlemen, the bridesmaids [TOAST]
  Before I sit down I'd like to thank my Best Man and great friend Gavin,
  They say being a best man is like snogging the queen, a great honour but nobody wants to do it!
  Thanks for all your helping organising such a great stag do I enjoyed it enormously even the part where I got covered in shaving foam and cling filmed to that lamp post in Norwich City Centre.
  I'd also just like to stress that he's never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good story so I hope you bear this in mind when he stands up to speak in a moment!
  On that note I'll pass to him, but not without firstly saying Ladies and
  Gentlemen, thank you all again for being here today, for the wonderful
  gifts, for your good wishes and most of all for your friendship now and
  in the future. Here's to a wonderful evening
  So Ladies and Gentlemen, my Best Man Gavin
• sounds good mate
• HOW many bridesmaids???????? ... Seriously, I think the speech is great and I hope you have a lovely wedding
• Thanks!, took until 2AM last night to write it!, i did pinched a few bits from the hitched website which has really helped!.
  And yes 6 bridesmaids!! not my choice!