Wedding Toasts: 5 Tips to Keeping it Awesome
Editor’s Note:
This is an older article, though the information is still very true. For additional articles on wedding toast giving check out Wedding Pros Top Tips for Giving a Wedding Toast and Cheers! Some tips on giving a wedding toast and totally rocking it.
Good luck!
As a best man and often maid-of-honor, it’s part of your responsibility to come up with a wedding toast for the new couple. It’s easy to get nervous or anxious when you’re asked to give a wedding toast, but if stick to the following guidelines, it should be pretty easy and particularly awesome. I mean, how hard is it to make people laugh, cry, smile and applaud in less than five minutes in front of a couple hundred people, right?
Photo by Lisa Rhinehart Photography
You’ll typically give your wedding toast right before dinner is served or in between courses and it’s a time for you to share your thoughts on the day, congratulate the couple, and make everyone feel welcome. While there are no set “rules” as to what you should and should not say for your wedding toast, here is the advice I typically give:
1. Keep is short
Keeping your wedding toast to under five minutes is standard, but stand up, speak up and then shut up. Remember, dinner, dancing and celebrations are waiting.
2. Don’t mention exes
It’s great to reminisce, but keep the past girlfriends and boyfriends out of your wedding toast. If you have a funny story about someone else, save it for another time when it isn’t going to make someone REALLY uncomfortable.
3. Don’t roast anyone
They asked you to be their Best Man or Maid-of-Honor for a reason. It’s ALWAYS ok to crack a few jokes, but it’s not the time to bring up all their flaws – it’s a wedding toast, not a roast.
4. Make notes, but you don’t need to write it all down
Everyone is different, but I’m a huge fan of speeches from the heart. By all means, have something prepared and maybe an outline in your head or on a small piece of paper that you want to talk about so you’re not a ball of “ummms”. But, when it’s time to talk, you don’t want to be looking down and reading from a piece of paper the whole time. Show your confidence.
5. Be authentic to yourself
If you’re a funny person, make people laugh. If you’re sentimental, get them teary-eyed. If you’re straightforward, be straightforward. Focus on just being you and don’t worry about trying to be someone you’re not. It’ll show.
