When I Was A Best Man
This is kind of moving away from my wedding, but it’s still relevant as it’s about when I was a best man for my brother, Ben. One of my next wedding jobs is to write the most important speech of my life and, as it’s mainly just standing up and thanking everyone then handing over to my best man to get royally stitched up, I’m hoping he’ll read this and remember how good I was to him… If you’re a groom in the run up to your wedding, point your best man in the direction of this post and tell him I’m right. If you know my best man, do the same. Please?
My mum said one year she didn’t want anything for her birthday, so she got nothing. I’ve learned from that fateful year. Although he said I didn’t have to do a speech, I knew I had to really. I’m not a shy person generally, but I’ve not done an immense amount of public speaking and this whole thing started putting the wind up me a bit. I think the responsibility of standing up as Ben’s best man became more and more of a weight on my shoulders the closer it got to speech time.
The good thing was I made it through the jelly legs and managed to stand. That’s the biggest problem I had. Once I was there it all went swimmingly. I kicked off by pulling a peach out of my pocket and simply saying “Best Man’s Peach” in my finest Tommy Cooper voice. To my knowledge, I have a worldwide patent on this gag (The peach was ceremoniously lobbed into Lake Windermere, pictured right).
I then went through the usual process of sending up the groom by hinting at a load of stuff without getting too blue and making the kids in the room ask mum and dad awkward questions or make Aunt Ethel faint. This seemed to work pretty well as a general ice breaker for the whole event, not just as an approach for the speech itself. A bunch of people asking the groom probing questions in the evening is way more entertaining than the shock value of tapping a wine glass with your knife, standing up and simply pulling the skeletons out of the closet.
Most places that give you tips on writing a good speech will all agree, make sure your speech is right for the audience. If you’re not a stand up comic, don’t try and be one. If you’re not Tommy Cooper, trying to be him is still ok though…
Dan’s Tips:
• Write your speech well in advance.
• Practice makes passable (Never aim for perfect or you’ll get way to stressed out).
• A couple of deep breaths to get your brain oxygenised, but not too many or you’ll fall over.
• Relax. You might look bit daft doing thrusts and squats just before you speak, but a few subtle shoulder rolls will loosen things up a bit.
• Sip water. What am I saying? Sip beer. Sip though.
• Cue cards, not the whole speech, or you’ll get lost and flustered and then you’re screwed.
• And finally, if you mention anyone in person, get names right. To this day, even I don’t know who Harry is and why I thanked him in my speech.
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