Setting things up
What you’re looking to do with any great best man speech is almost pose a question at the beginning and then spend the rest of the speech answering it. That might sound confusing but it’s really very simple: if the groom was passionate about football as a kid, then how did he end up an accountant. If you go this way then you can have fun with his character traits, his hair colour, and even his dress sense. it gives you a full range of literary weapons to choose from and much greater creative license. Or in other words – you can just make stuff up.
Stories
Stories play a key part in any great best man speech but they have to be handled carefully. A simple structure for a speech would be to have a couple of great stories in between a beginning and an end, nothing wrong with that but you need to keep them punchy. What you should do is strip out all the detail and look to condense all the detail into small nuggets. So very much like the speech itself they should have a setup, middle and punchline. These should very roughly come in at no more than 200 words each.
The Bride
The bride is very much the star of the show, and although this speech is all about the groom, you should of course give her a well deserved mention. This can be quite brief but you should say how beautiful she looks and what an amazing effect she’s had on the groom…it might be amazingly bad, but for today at least it’s all good. This might sound a cliched but forget to mention the bride and her dazzling beauty and repent at leisure.
Structure
The overall structure of the best man speech is crucial to its success. If you can nail a good structure from beginning to end, then people will listen to everything you’ve got to say. And if you can make them laugh whilst you’re doing it, they’ll even love you a little bit too! You might be thinking that you’re not too comfortable with the comedy element, but really it’s just there to give the speech balance. If there were no lighter moments in the speech then it rapidly becomes too emotionally overloaded.
Opening Lines
This doesn’t need to be over thought. You need to settle yourself into the speech in a clam and relaxed way and keep the guests on your side. The best policy is just to introduce yourself and say what a pleasure it is to be there. Don’t welcome anyone because that’s all been covered by the father of the bride and groom, and they’ve also done all the thanking as well. Tradition says you should say something on behalf of the bridesmaids but this feels really old fashioned these days and we say just skip it and get to the good stuff.
Getting going
You need a start, it might sound obvious but it helps for the guests to understand the pathway you’re describing if you start it as early as possible in the groom’s life. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know him then, it can be a very general set up like ‘how did this chubby ginger kid become the the financial services very own Ed Sheeran?’ Some guys like to start with ice breaker jokes, the only problem with those are they’ve been around the block so many times it’s very difficult to get a laugh or two from them. And if your first joke falls flat…
Sentiment
Really, your job on the day is to celebrate the happy couple, and let everyone know just what a great guy the groom is. The content on this very much depends on what you’re comfortable with. One or two profound lines about what a great friend or brother he’s been and how much you value your friendship is more than enough. Continue for several paragraphs and you could witness physical revulsion.
Toasts
There really should be only one toast and that’s at the end and to the happy couple. Never toast the groom in isolation because that would be just too weird and uncomfortable. Other toasts could be on offer such as one to absent friends but you need to make sure that nobody else is making the same one before you plumb it into your speech.
Marital Advice
We kind of avoid this in our speeches as it also feels really old fashioned and pretty cliched. It’s very hard to make this funny without it sounding like the same old jokes, and it’s just taking up space where you could fit something more interesting such as a really well researched and fitting quote. If you are going to give some humorous tips then make it from your own experience and that personal touch will make it much funnier for all concerned.