I don’t want to make you feel depressed, but once you’ve finished all the hard work of researching, preparing your material and writing your speech you then get down to the really hard work-rehearsing.

Some people advocate the impromptu speech, especially for weddings and other social occasions. As long as you have a few minutes beforehand to gather your thoughts and scribble a few notes, they say, you’ll be fine.

And in some cases, chances are they’re right. But on an occasion as important as your wedding (or that of someone you’re very close to) who needs to leave it to chance? Blame it on my being a boring old Taurean if you like, but I do not support that view unless you happen to be a very practised, accomplished public speaker in the first place. And if you were, you probably wouldn’t be reading this book.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT AND ALL THAT

So - you’ve got to practise, practise, practise. Not too soon before the event, or you’ll be so stale and fed up with the speech you’ll lose interest. But don’t wait until the last minute, either. Just as was the case with your GCSEs and other school exams, swatting up whatever you can the night before is unlikely to bring you much success.

Memorise the speech as well as you can, but don’t worry if you forget the odd ‘and’ or ‘but’. If you say ‘er’ and hesitate slightly now and again, it will make your speech sound more natural. What you must memorise perfectly is the content, and the order.

Then on the day, you will use your script or bullet points as a reminder - not as an essential element that you would be desperate without. All that rehearsal - in the shower, in the car, to your family or if they don’t appreciate your oratory, even to your dog - will pay off because you will be confident, and that’s because:

• 1.Your material is good.
• 2.You know it well.

WORKING WITH AN AUDIO RECORDER

Some people find working with an audio recorder quite a useful way to practise a speech. Simply record yourself reading it into your recorder and then play it back to yourself, speaking it along with your own voice. It’s something you can do at home or in your car and even on the bus or train, although that might get you some funny looks from fellow passengers!

The other benefit of using the audio recorder is that by listening to yourself say your speech, you’ll notice any areas where you tend to stumble over a word, where a sentence doesn’t work as you had intended, where a joke falls a bit flat, etc. This gives you the opportunity to polish your speech. However, don’t make the mistake of making radical changes at the last minute, unless of course unexpected events force you to do so.

Now, enough from a mere speech-writer. While researching for this book I was lucky enough to interview Gail Cornish LNEA. Gail is a drama teacher at the acclaimed Artists’ Theatre School in London (www.artiststheatreschool.com) and she kindly took time out to give us her advice. It’s incredibly helpful - so enjoy!

Here’s how our conversation went.

Part One, rehearsal and practising

**Gail … now, obviously the majority of women reading this book will not be professional actors or presenters, so please bear that in mind! First of all, compared with a man’s voice, how does a woman’s voice travel and project to an audience? What disadvantages does she have from this point of view?

Any advantages?

A woman’s voice tends to travel and project better than a man’s because it is lighter and higher. However, this can tend to give her less ‘authority’ when speaking.

**What can a ‘lay’ female speaker do to improve the way her voice sounds when speaking to an audience?

An untrained female speaker should concentrate on keeping her voice as low in pitch as possible (without sounding Margaret Thatcherish!) to avoid any shrillness.

**When she is practising her speech, what exercises could she do to improve her voice quality and projection/volume?

When practising her speech, she should do breathing exercises (the breath is the ‘petrol’, so to speak, for the voice engine - most people breathe too shallowly), facial warm up exercises, vocal warm up exercises (see below)and practise speaking to the end of a room, to the end of the garden, speaking while the radio is playing - all of these can help to keep the volume up. Also practise speaking slowly. Record yourself doing the speech - you will probably be speaking too fast. Go at half the speed that you think feels right - then halve it again -that will probably be about right for public speaking!

**Any other tips?

Practise status: say the speech with your toes turned inward, your shoulders hunched, looking down or flicking your eyes around, touching your face and hair frequently. Then drop all those behaviours. Say the speech standing straight, looking straight ahead and sweeping your eyes slowly around from one side to the other, keeping your hands and head straight and still.

Find (or create - StM)places in the speech where you can breathe deeply and slowly. Practise saying the speech slowly, exaggerating the breath marks.

Another helpful way to prepare for your speech is to use visualisation techniques. In the following excerpt from Philip Calvert’s top-selling book,Make A Great Wedding Speech (How To Books) Philip kindly shares with us the technique of ‘seeing’ our way to success.

Now, I’m no expert on the inner workings of wonders of the human mind, but what I do know is that a superb way of rehearsing your speech is to do it ‘in your head’. In fact, running through your speech in your mind can often be as effective a rehearsal as doing it for real.

The subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between something that is real or something that is vividly imagined. If you vividly imagine yourself delivering your speech with confidence, flair, style, good humour and warmth, your execution on the day itself will reflect this because your mind will believe that it has had a ‘real’ rehearsal …

… Unlike real rehearsals, you can do these mental practice sessions as often as you want. And every session will be of benefit however short.

Tips on visualisation rehearsals

• Start by vividly imagining how you will feel as you sit down after giving your speech.
• Make a conscious effort to imagine what it will be like and how good you will feel as all the guests applaud loudly and enthusiastically.
• Imagine several people patting you firmly on the back as they congratulate you and others giving you the thumbs up from tables across the room.
• See their faces as they tell you what a great speech it was. Listen to the words they use and feel yourself smiling broadly and being proud of your fantastic achievement.
• Now rewind this ‘film’ in your mind to the start of your speech and see yourself rising to your feet.
• You feel relaxed, confident and are looking forward to talking to the guests. You already know that they are going to enjoy your speech and will applaud loudly.
• See and hear yourself speaking in your mind’s eye. See yourself looking guests in the eye and feel the warmth of their response in return.
• See the guests nodding, smiling and enjoying themselves and imagine how that will make you feel.

Come the moment of truth, you will be amazed at how what you imagined beforehand magically comes to life. In short, creative visualisation is a superb tool for both building your confidence and getting vital rehearsal time.

And now, on to the day itself… delivery.

First of all, the second half of our interview with Gail Cornish.

DELIVERY TIPS: MY OWN, FOR WHAT THEY’RE WORTH!

As you may have gathered from the terrific input from other people in this chapter I’m no expert on delivery and presentation techniques. That’s because I’m a speechwriter, so content is my real forté.

Having said that I have worked with professional, amateur and social speakers extensively over the last, well, I won’t admit how many years! And over that time I have learned not just how to write for them but also how to help them develop their presentation and delivery performances.

Often I’ve ended up stage directing speakers, usually because the actual director was held up in traffic or otherwise distracted. But I never turned down an opportunity to help rehearse and direct speakers on stage because of the chance it gave me to learn about disciplines other than my own, and to get a better view of my own skills in the broader context.

In fact, I have given speeches. Many times. I won’t bore you with why, where and how, but suffice it to say many of those occasions have been - once again - when the proper person was otherwise indisposed, drunk, petrified from stage fright, under the influence of recreational drugs, being sick as a result of pregnancy, plus a whole host of reasons not suitable for a family audience. The net result, though, was that I have served my apprenticeship as a speaker as well as writer, despite never (so far) having spoken at a wedding.

So without boring you further, I know how it feels! And despite having to bow to the far greater expertise of Gail, Phil, Simon etal who have contributed to this chapter, here are my own few tips and observations on how to get the best from your presentation and delivery.

BEFORE YOU GIVE YOUR SPEECH

Forget about ‘Dutch courage’ - don’t drink any alcohol until after you’ve given your speech. In my many years of writing speeches for business people and social speakers I’ve heard all the rationales about a drink or two loosening the tongue, calming your nerves, relaxing you, making you funnier, etc., and they’re all bullsh*t. Even one drink affects your concentration detrimentally and can ruin your performance.

If you can’t escape somewhere private to practise Gail’s facial and vocal exercises, go into a quiet corner and pout as hard as you can, then release your lips. Grimace, then relax. Do this a few times. It will help relax your facial muscles and help you speak more easily.

MICROPHONES: HOW TO USE THEM

If a microphone is available, take advantage of it - don’t be afraid of it! Usually a microphone at a wedding will be on a stand, either a table stand or a full stand depending on the set-up. If you are the first speaker to go you’ll need to check if the microphone is live; this you do by tapping it gently with your finger. Whatever you do don’t blow down it as the moisture from your breath can damage its innards. If it isn’t live check that it’s switched on; usually the on-off switch is on the side of the device, or sometimes at the bottom.

Assuming you haven’t had the chance to do an on-site rehearsal, use your first line as the test to see where you should position the mike and yourself to get the best effect. Don’t worry if you need to fiddle with it for a moment or two - there’s no meter running, so take your time. If you’re not the first speaker to go you shouldn’t have to make anything other than very minor adjustments to the mike, but if you are the first it may take a bit of trial and error.

Then, when you’re speaking, make sure that wherever you are -and you may be moving around a little to look at your audience (see below) - the microphone is more or less directly between you and the audience. In other words, ‘aim’ your voice so it goes towards the microphone first, as I’ve attempted to illustrate below. First of all, looking straight ahead:

Then, to your left.

And finally to your right.

You don’t need to move very much to achieve this - probably a matter of inches. However if you don’t move appropriately, as in this diagram:

your voice will go past the microphone and not get picked up properly. People will tell you not to worry about this as the microphone is omni-directional and can pick up a fly’s footsteps at a distance of 20 metres. Don’t listen to them. Even an omnidirectional mike may go quiet on you unless you aim your voice squarely at it.

Finally, remember not to rely on a microphone too much. Even with electronic help you still need to speak out and project your voice when you’re giving a speech. A quiet mutter will still sound like a quiet mutter whether amplified or not.

SOME MORE OF MY TIPS

• Stand up proudly - shoulders back. This give you more authority and makes people take notice.
• When you look around to get eye contact with people, keep moving your eyeline around but not too quickly or you’ll look shifty. If your audience is large, split the room visually into sections and then look at each section in turn.
• My grandfather had a lovely saying … ‘smile when you don’t feel like it, and you will feel like it when you smile’. Smile when you’re talking even if you’re nervous. It’s infectious - people will smile with you. And if you’re smiling you won’t look nervous, even if you are.
• Try to keep your hands still, either by your sides or resting on the table or lectern. If you want, use one hand to gesture and emphasise what you’re saying, but be careful that this doesn’t look contrived. (A few practice sessions in the bathroom mirror are worth considering.)
• If you fluff a line or mess something up, don’t apologise. Just smile and keep going.
• If you feel nervous, remember that’s natural and if anything, it’s good. The extra adrenaline pumping around in your system will help keep you on your toes mentally.

AND IF YOU’RE STILL NERVOUS…

If you’re still feeling nervous about giving your speech on the day, here is another great idea from my very kind team of contributing experts. This tip is excerpted from the eBookLike A Brick Wrapped In Velvet by Dr Simon Raybould of Curved Vision, the specialist consultancy that uses the techniques of professional theatre in the ‘real’ world (www.curved-vision.co.uk). Simon’s original version is very detailed, but bearing in mind that my word count for this book was limited I have edited it to fit. The original version appears in Simon’s eBook and is available from the Curved Vision website.

Anchoring is a term used heavily in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Essentially it’s a process of associating being relaxed and confident with … well … almost anything, really!

Anyone who has heard their school drama teachers saying something like ‘do it just like you did in rehearsals and you’ll be great’ has heard a crude form of anchoring being used. Here, the teacher is trying to get the pupils to forget their nerves by remembering how well and how confidently they ran through the play (or dance, or whatever) when they were rehearsing it.

A much more effective version of this technique is to establish some kind of semi-formal routine, or ritual. This ritual must be something you do every time you practise, so that by doing it again before you perform live your subconscious brain automatically associates what your body is currently doing with how it felt last time you did your ritual - at rehearsals perhaps, when you were relaxed, confident, and knew that if you made a mistake you could just deal with it and go on.

Perhaps an example will serve to illustrate the point better:

‘I’m married and I wear a platinum ring. For me, the ring is associated with many of the good things in my life. Because my wedding ring represents that, touching it reminds me of that. For a while, I made a point of rotating it by 45° with the thumb of my left hand every time I walked up the path to my front door. After I’d done that for a while, whenever I rotated my ring, it reminded me of arriving home and how much more relaxed and secure I felt as I got there. Now, when I’m nervous, I simply rotate the ring and all the good feelings of home come instantly to mind. It sounds too simple to be true but the effects can be quite remarkable.’

When you decide to ‘anchor’ your confident state to something, use a bit of common sense and the following points to guide you:

• Don’t pick on an object(other than, like the person above, a wedding or other ring you never take off - StM) stick to an action or something that is absolutely guaranteed to be with you always.
• Pick something that is easy to do, not a complicated routine.
• Choose something that’s not obtrusive so you can do it without people noticing.
• Pick something unusual, not something you do frequently already.
• You need to do it whenever you practise.
• It’s possible to combine this anchor with, say, a breathing exercise.

And finally, here’s a very encouraging quote from John Bowden’s excellent book, Making The Best Man’s Speech (How To Books) which applies every bit as much to your speech as it does to all the others.

Enough said! By now you should be feeling much more confident that you’re thoroughly capable of researching, preparing, rehearsing and delivering the wedding speech of a lifetime. So all that’s left is to determine what to talk about.