SPEECHES - View WeddingIreland.ie or Weddings Ireland for more details or
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The speeches and toasts take place at the end of
the meal, usually before the cutting of the wedding cake. The purpose is really
to congratulate the newlyweds and wish them happiness in their future life
together, and also to thank various people.
Increasingly, brides are choosing to make a speech at their own wedding, or to
ask their chief bridesmaid to speak on their behalf, and this is now
considered perfectly acceptable and not unusual, although there is no compulsion to speak if the idea horrifies.
The time for speeches can be a moment of dread for many best men and
fathers, but there is no reason why
even the most inexperienced public speaker cannot make a good speech.
DO remember that the speeches are not the most vital part of
the wedding and if all you an muster are a few words of thanks and a taos to
the newlyweds, no one will mind.
DO prepare. Even the most accomplished speakers prepare their
speeches.
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Ways to prepare a speech. |
Write your speech and then read it aloud.
The disadvantage of this is that it lacks spontaneity and does not allow
for any amusing incidents from the day to be added.
Memorise The Speech
Not very easy and most people
will falter and forget due to nerves.
Use Card Note with key words and phrases.
This is a very useful
method. It gives you a chance to speak
from the heart but reminds you what you intended to say if you get carried away
or interrupted.
Witty Speeches.
It is often a good idea to include a funny anecdote or joke in a wedding speech and you may be
able to think of the perfect story. But.
DO remember your audience.
A joke or story may go down well with the groom and his buddies in the
pub but may not be a good idea with elderly guests and other family members.
DON’T make jokes at the expense of the bride(or her mother)
DON’T make jokes that would be offensive.
It is ok to make jokes at the grooms expense as long as they are affectionate
and not offensive.
A safer alternative to jokes me be to use one or two well-chosen quotations.
DON’T use three or more at the expense of sounding too
pompous. It is not a literature lesson.
A good source of material for your quotes would be writers like: Oscar Wilde,
George Bernard Shaw and Dorothy Parker,
or performers like Groucho Marx
and Mae West. Socrates also had a great way with words.
Some basic DO's and DON'Ts
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Do |
Don't |
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· Shout · Stare try to look natural · Look up at the ceiling or down at the floor · Get carried away with the Dutch courage. - Too much alcohol does not help. · Fiddle with your hands. · Go on too long
people want to party. · Speak too quickly. |
Avoid
using a microphone if you can.
Some Great Quotes
Groucho Marx
"A woman is an occasional
pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke".
"Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for
me?"
"He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool
you. He really is an idiot."
Mark Twain
"When you cannot get a compliment in any other way, pay yourself
one."
Mae West
"It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean."
"A hard man is good to
find."
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
George Bernard Shaw
"The British churchgoer prefers a severe preacher because he thinks a
few home truths will do his neighbours no harm."
"Take care to get what you like, or you will end by liking what you
get."
Helen Rowland
"When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to
work for a living."
Socrates
"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you
get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
Muhammad Ali
"My toughest fight was with my first wife."
Rita Rudner
"I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life."
“If we men married the women we deserved we should have a
very bad time of it.” Oscar Wilde from An Ideal Husband.
I require only three thing of a man. He must be polite, ruthless ad stupid”
Dorothy Parker
Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no
pleasures” Samuel Johnson
Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage
contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences. Isadora Duncan.
Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys and quadruples our expenses. G.K. Chesterton
There are six requisites in every happy marriage. The first is faith and the
remaining five are Confidence. Elbert
Hubbard.
All husbands are alike, but they have different faces so you can tell them
apart. Ogden Nash.
The man who says that his wife can’t take a joke forgets that she took him. Oscar
Wilde.
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as
good. Luckily this is not difficult. Charlotte
Whitton.
Speeches
and Toasts
The purpose of wedding speeches is to congratulate the couple, wish them well
in their future life together and to thank appropriate people. They include toasts, usually occur after the
last course of the meal and are followed by the cake cutting ceremony.
How to start...
Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends, and anybody who does
not fit into that categorory.
Ladies and Gentlemen – I am called the best man, but goodness knows why. They all say Isn’t the bride radiant and
doesn’t the groom look dashing and how pretty the bridesmaids are. But you
never hear any one say What a fine figure of a man the best man is. If they notice me at all they think I’m a
caterer. But enough about me….
Ladies and Gentlemen – you were expecting me to say that weren’t you.
Ladies and Gentlemen – who says flattery doesn’t work.
Ladies and Gentlemen – when you get older, three things start to happen. First, you loose your memory. (pause and look blank) I can’t remember the other two.
Friends – I know you all too well to call
you ladies and gentlemen.
Toasts
May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again may God hold you
In the palm of his hand.
Ladies and Gentlemen – will you please stand and raise your glasses, and drink
with me a toast to the health, happiness and prosperity of the newlyweds. Pause.
To Adam and Eve.
I would like to propose a toast to Adam and Eve,
to wish them every happiness in their life together. May all your troubles be little ones. Pause. To Adam and Eve.
So here’s to Adam and Eve. Long may they keep open house to three of
the best friends they’ll ever have: Love Life and Laughter.
To Adam and Eve – May we all be invited to your
Golden Wedding Celebrations.
To Eve – may she share everything with Adam,
including the housework.
To Adam and
Eve. May the roof above you
never fall in. And may you both never
fall out.
As Sydney Smith wrote. Here’s to
marriage. That happy estate that
resembles a pair of scissors, so joined that they cannot be separated. Often moving in opposite directions, yet
punishing anyone that comes between them.
Jokes
Adam says he’s a keen football fan and that he’s
an Arsenal Supporter(mention his team)
I don’t quite see the connection.
After the honeymoon, husband says to wife. “You don’t mind if I pointed out a
few of your little defects. Would
you?” “Not at all dear,” she replied
sweetly. “It was those little defects that stopped me from getting a better
husband.”
The brain is a wonderful thing. It
never stops working from the time you are born until the moment you start to
make a speech.
2 middle aged ladies were talking about marriage. “I haven’t seen my husband for twenty years,” said one. “He just
went out to buy a head of cabbage and never came back.” “What on earth did you do?” asked the other.
“Oh! I just opened a tin of peas.”
“Sorry we’ve sold out of geraniums pots” said the girl in the garden
centre. “What about some nice pots of chrysanths?”
“Oh no,” said the customer, “It was geraniums my wife told me to water while
she was away.”
There was this husband who discovered a way to hammer in nails without hitting
his thumb. He got his wife to hold the
nail.
They had been married a year when the wife confessed that she’d splashed out on
ten pairs of shoes. “Ten!” he
exploded. “What could you possibly want
with ten pairs of shoes.?” She smiled
at him fondly, “Ten new handbags” she explained.
Son: "Why do most brides wear white?"
Father: "Isn't that the colour of most kitchen appliances?!!"