How far you can dictate the planning of your wedding speech depends of course on where you are in the pecking order. If you’re the bride, that’s great - it’s your call! If you’re a female relative or friend, however, you may not get the opportunity to do more than make tactful suggestions. It will probably help you a lot to understand how wedding speechesshould be planned, because if nothing else it means your own speech will benefit.

TRADITIONAL WEDDING SPEECHES

To do a proper job of this we need to go back to the traditional set up of male-only speeches, largely because in the UK at least most weddings still follow that basic structure, i.e.:

• The father of the bride (or other close male relative of hers, or sometimes an old family friend)
  He talks about the bride - usually makes her squirm with embarrassment at the anecdotes of the bride aged five with her teddy bears and dolls! He welcomes the guests to the wedding and the groom and his family into his own. He will also thank people for their efforts in the wedding preparations (especially the bride’s mother, if appropriate) and mention special guests who can’t be present. Finally he proposes a toast to the bride and groom.
• The bridegroom
  He normally speaks on behalf of both himself and the bride, thanking the bride’s father for his speech, and to all the family members concerned in setting up and paying for the wedding. He also thanks everyone else for their roles on the day and the entire audience for their gifts, etc. He ends by proposing a toast to the bridal attendants (bridesmaids, maid/matron of honour, pages, etc.)
• The best man
  He thanks the bridegroom for his speech and - on behalf of the bridal attendants - for his toast. He talks about the groom, and his relationship with him. He then reads out any telemessages and cards that have accumulated, and ends by proposing a toast to the bride and groom.

So, now that we are about to throw that structure into disarray by introducing women speakers into the equation, let’s strip out what we need to consider as essentials. These are the elements that need to be incorporated into the wedding speeches no matter who gives them. Obviously each family will have their own particular priorities, but here are the basics as I see them.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF WEDDING SPEECHES?

• 1.For the key participants to show appreciation to and thank publicly:
  • everyone who has worked hard to make the day a success
  • everyone who has contributed financially
  • everyone who has come to the wedding, especially from far away
  • everyone who has sent or brought gifts to the bridal couple
  • everyone who has participated in the ceremony - bridal attendants, minister/priest/rabbi, etc.
• 2.To celebrate the bride and groom and their relationship

As we’ll see later in the book, women’s speeches can be positioned in one of two ways - either replacing one of the key traditional male roles, or as an addition/alternative to the traditional male roles. And despite potential grumblings from great uncles, as long as the basic courtesies are covered by the speeches at a wedding, it doesn’t really matter who says what.

WORKING OUT A PLAN WITH THE OTHER SPEAKERS

One of the few advantages of the traditional, male-led speech structure is that each speaker knows what his remit is and with luck no one gets left off the thank you list. When that structure is deviated from, though, there is an increased risk that a) someone or something will get forgotten and b) speakers may duplicate each other’s content.

There is a simple solution to this problem - make a plan. In years gone by sometimes this was geographically difficult, with families and friends not being able to get together to discuss the speech content until perhaps the night before the wedding. However, these days with cheaper telephone charges and the luxury of email, those old excuses for not communicating with your fellow speakers in plenty of time have been eradicated.

The act of creating a plan will ensure that all essential elements of the speeches are catered for and, hopefully, allocated fairly among the speakers. It will also avoid duplication which can be a killer. There’s nothing so irritating as listening to the speaker before you ‘steal your lines’, necessitating a hasty rewrite of your speech on a table napkin ten minutes before your big moment.

Never forget whose wedding it is

Now this may seem obvious, but the best place to start when making the plan is with the bride and groom. Even if you are the bride, you can sometimes be forgiven for wondering whose day this is going to be, especially when mothers are in charge of organisation (that’s personal experience talking here!).

However, even if the dinner menu and flower arrangements do become someone else’s domain, the speeches are entirely centred on the bridal couple, radiating out to their family and friends who are supporting their day. It makes a lot of sense, therefore, for both bride and groom to work very closely with the other speakers right from the planning stage so that not only everyone knows who is going to say what, but also that what everyone is going to say meets with the bridal couple’s approval. Which leads neatly on to...

POLITICAL/SOCIAL ‘ISSUES’-i.e. PROBLEMS

With so many families having experienced divorce, remarriage, step-parents, step-children, etc., if you’re not careful a wedding can turn into an emotional minefield. Although you need to tread warily in what you say in your speech, to be on the safe side you need to allow for any such cans of worms right from the beginning, at the speech planning stage. And that can even start with the decision-making process of who is going to speak in the first place.

Obviously I can’t stick my nose into other families’ business and tell you how you should handle delicate issues, but it’s essential that everyone stays focused on the fact that a wedding is purely about celebrating the bride and groom’s union and happiness- and that’s all.

Weddings are not the right time to settle old scores

No matter how difficult relationships between estranged or divorced relatives might be, I personally feel that it’s incredibly selfish of them to drag their disputes into such an occasion and upset the bride, groom, or both - as we saw with Anya’s poor sister (see above). I know it can be a tense time but there are ways of padding things out so that those who loathe each other are rendered relatively harmless.

For example, you can nominate someone to keep them apart. This job was assigned to me at my brother-in-law’s wedding and I had to sit in the front pew between his father and his mother, for whom this was the first full frontal encounter since they had last snarled at each other in the divorce court 30 years previously. It certainly kept me on the edge of my chair, or pew, rather, but they behaved themselves.

Anyway for the sake of the speeches, and after all that’s what we are here to talk about, it makes life a great deal more pleasant if any familial animosity is anticipated very early on and planned for before you even consider what to say - or more to the point here whatnot to say - in your speech.

Other prickly issues: disapproval/jealousy

Whether any of us like it or not, you may get a little bit of disapproval from some of the menand women involved in the wedding preparations. These are likely to be the older ones who favour the traditional structure and can usually be chivvied along with some cheerful, tactful chat. But be aware of jealousy, too. As you may already know emotions run high on these family occasions and even something as apparently trivial as the seating plan can cause spectacular tantrums.

You might think, with some justification, that if someone is bitchy or resentful about your making a speech it’s their problem. However a lot depends on who that person is; if it’s someone who may be very helpful to you in your research for your speech, say, it will be well worth your while smoothing over ruffled feathers and making friends with him or her.

Other prickly issues: jokes and humour

We’ll get into this topic in much more detail later on, but it’s worth considering it at the planning stage too. As we’ll see, even a little humour works especially well in wedding speeches but there’s nothing worse than inadvertently joking about something that someone, somewhere in the audience, doesn’t think is funny at all. For that reason it’s a very good idea for all wedding speakers -not just you - to discuss this point amongst yourselves at the planning stage so that no one writes a potentially painfulfaux pas into their speech.

TIMING: DON’T FORGET THE CALLS OF NATURE

Traditionally the speeches are made somewhere around the second half of a stand-up reception and after the main course of a sit-down wedding meal. In the first case there should be few housekeeping problems, but in the second case remember to allow a short period for comfort breaks. Children and elderly guests particularly will not enjoy the speeches very much if they have eaten and drunk their fill and experience urgent calls of nature which they’re obliged to ignore until the orations are over.

The timing and announcement of the speeches will be greatly helped if you have a way of controlling things. Hence...

THE BENEFITS OF A TOASTMASTER

Whether a professional toastmaster is used (some venues will supply one as part of the wedding package) or one of the speakers does the honours, it’s very useful not only to have each speaker formally introduced, but also to warn guests that the speeches will be starting in X minutes. This gives them their cue for the loo if they need one.

Trained toastmasters know how to raise their voices so they can be heard over the hub-bub. But if you are in a position to choose someone amongst a selection of amateurs, anyone with a loud voice is fine. Traditionally your choice might veer towards a man but some women’s voices are able to break glass - any female school teacher or horse riding instructor, for example, will do perfectly. A drama teacher friend of mine who is also a horse show organiser can be heard in the next county across a seven-ring showground, tannoy announcements, vehicle movements, etc., with the odd rumble of thunder thrown in. And all that without a microphone; merely the result of teaching a class of 30 unruly Year 10 performing arts pupils.

Speeches and toasts -who does what

Something else that should be worked in early on is to whom the toasts will be made, and by whom. Toasts can either be made at the end of a speech, or they can be little stand-alone speechettes by themselves, given by another speaker or the toastmaster.

Harking back to the traditional structure again, we see that, at the end of his speech, the father of the bride proposes a toast to the bride and groom; the groom responds and at the end of his speech, toasts the bridal attendants; and finally the best man responds to that and can then propose a final toast if he wants to.

However, the bottom line is that provided the bride and groom and attendants get toasted, you and your fellow speakers can toast whoever else you like. Who toasts whom should be decided at the planning stage, though. That way all ‘toasting’ speakers have the chance to prepare the short preamble you need to deliver before asking people to do the toast itself - the basic message of which is ‘please be upstanding and raise your glasses… ladies and gentlemen, [the bride and groom, mother of the bride, Peter and Wendy, etc.].

More than one language

Many weddings involve a blend of more than one culture and/or language; this can range from a contingent of friends from a foreign country attending the wedding, to the bride or groom (and most of her/his family) being from elsewhere. Depending on how pivotal your speech is within the structure, it may be that you’ll think of giving a part of your speech in the other language concerned.

Even if you don’t speak that other language yourself, it should be possible for you to learn a couple of sentences. If you say these during your speech it’s bound to be well appreciated. Just watch out for any clowns who tell you to say something that turns out to be rude! When in doubt, get it translated back into English first.

ANOTHER WORD ABOUT TIMINGS

How long is a piece of string? That’s the riddle-like question we need to ask ourselves when determining how long everyone’s wedding speeches should run. When you ask anyone else how long a wedding speech should be, the answer ranges from ‘as short as possible’ to ‘as long as the audience continue to enjoy themselves’.

Someone famous (I forget who…ah, another senior moment) once said in a very un-PC sexist way, ‘a speech should be like a woman’s skirt; short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject matter’.

Realistically, short, sharp wedding speeches are more enjoyable for everyone than the long, drawn-out variety. My own feeling is that shorter is better; express what you want to express and finish, unless you’re someone who can keep a friendly audience entertained for longer. Good luck at making that judgement!

NOW, THE NEXT STAGE… THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG?

When I was planning this book I thought long and hard about what to discuss next - the ‘what to say’, or the ‘how to say it’. Much as ‘what to say’ might logically be placed first, I’ve always found when helping speakers put presentations together that it’s better to work on the mechanics of speech preparation and delivery first.

That way once you get to the ‘what to say’ you’re already feeling comfortable and confident about putting your material together, and because you’ve worked through some presentation techniques and exercises you know what you’ll be able to say effectively - and what you won’t. That makes your choice of what to say much easier.

I hope you agree with my reasoning!