What can make your speech gripping is its potential to involve the audience on a subjective level, to make them empathise with your deepest feelings, to forge a bond between them and you.

As father of the bride, you are expected to indulge in a little emotional outpouring as you say how much you care for your daughter, declare your confidence that she has made the right choice of husband and include a few positive thoughts about love and marriage in general. The problem is that an unremitting, relentless stream of gushing, florid language can come across as pretentious and insincere.

The simple, yet highly effective solution to this apparent dilemma is to use sincerity and emotion with caution and restraint, to spread them thinly throughout your speech, like caviar, not pile them on thickly, like marmalade. One or two short, sharp, sensitive, deeply emotional expressions of your strong personal feelings will be far more effective and memorable than a whole series of half-hearted passing references to the pleasure and delight you are experiencing on this most happy of days.

1 Conveying emotion and seriousness

It’s all very well saying how much you care for your daughter, how confident you are that she has made the perfect choice of husband and how sure you are that they will have a wonderful future life together. The audience may well think ‘How nice’, but they won’t be moved.

There is an old story about a man who complained to his wife that the trouble with women is that they always take things personally. ‘Well I don’t!’ she replied, unwittingly falling into the trap he had set for her. Brides’ fathers are just as likely to dwell on their own feelings and reactions and can be stunned to discover that no one else in the room can relate to their genuine sentiments. ‘But I was almost in tears as I was saying this’ they protest. ‘How could the guests not be similarly moved?’

How indeed? The problem is that our feelings are abstract. It is not that we do not hear or understand abstractions, but without a visual peg, without something we can conjure up in our minds with colour and form, intangible ideas and concepts make little impact and are soon forgotten. Go around an art gallery and note the length of time a lively, realistic portrait will hold your attention in comparison with a piece of modern art which will hardly merit a second glance.

To illustrate this, take a look at the following two lists:

List One	List Two
Joy	Ship
Tenderness	Tree
Delight	Uncle
Happiness	Ice cream
Beauty	Table

Now, put the book down for a moment and see how many of these words you can jot down from memory. You probably remembered more words from List Two. This is because all the words in that list are all tangible objects, whereas the ones in List One are abstract.

Two further factors are involved here, and neither has anything to do with the audience’s hardheartedness. Firstly, when we try to describe the physical symptoms associated with a particular emotion – be it sadness, happiness, or delight – there is little room for surprise. We all know how it feels first hand.

The paradox is that in order to hold an audience’s attention we need to provide some new or profound angle, spin or insight into these emotions. Yet how can we say something different and meaningful about what are universal feelings?

Secondly, no matter how original your description of your emotions, it does not alter the fact that those emotions belong to you, not to them.

So what is the solution? It is to be reticent about your feelings and focus instead upon an incident which illustrates them. Concentrate, not on the emotion that was evoked, but on the situation that gave rise to it. Turn abstract ideas into strong, concrete visual images.

Don’t bore your listeners with long introductions or unnecessary explanation. Get straight to the heart of the matter. Focus on a single incident or situation; provide a snapshot and it will keep the image alive in your audience’s mind and heart.

‘I keep all my important certificates and awards In a drawer in the living room – my 1975 BSc, my 1961 accountancy qualification, my 2005 Salesman of the Year award. But shall I tell you which certificate I treasure most? Compared to this one all the others pale into insignificance. I won it back in 1989, well actually I won it jointly. You can keep the BSc, the ACA and the Salesman of the Year ... my most treasured award is the one for first place In the 1969 (daughter’s school) Father and Daughter Egg and Spoon Race. That award means more to me than a Nobel Prize or an Oscar. We were a real team that day. And, (daughter), I want you to know that you’ll always be in first place in my heart.’

Think of your favourite books, music, films. Don’t they all share this lingering quality? Too many speakers try to tell too much, and too much of what they tell is not unique. If they drone on interminably about ballet lessons, pony riding or the Brownies, is it really surprising when listeners lose interest and mentally switch off?

‘I must admit it, I didn’t want the car to stop today. I wanted to tell the chauffeur to drive on past the church. I know I was selfish, but I didn’t want the car to stop. But deep down I knew it had to. I knew it was the right time to walk down the aisle and hand over (daughter) to (son-in-law’s) loving and devoted care. And, as I’ve got to know (son-in-law) well over the last few months, I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that this will be very, very good care. Yes, on reflection, I was selfish: it was the right time for the car to stop and for me to get out and walk away.’

2 Choosing the right stories

As the writer C.S. Forrester reminds us, ‘There is no denying the fact that words spoken from the full heart carry more weight than all the artifices of rhetoric’.

You may already have a pretty good idea what incidents you are going to describe. If so, fine. If not, choose ones that have a telling point, ones that will have a positive effect on your audience and will stick in their memories.

The best way to recall some poignant and illuminating episodes is to think about one or two of these memory joggers:

	Memory joggers
Birthdays	Holidays
Turning points	Christmas
Major decisions	Friends
School	Hobbies
College	Ambitions
First job	Games and toys
Illness	Pets
Influential people	Travel

Pour yourself a drink, take a hot bath or go for a long walk and the memories will come flooding back. Better still, sleep on it. You really will get some of your best ideas this way. Your subconscious mind will take over and will come up with a whole series of interesting and unexpected memories and connections.

3 Weaving in a couple of quotations

Everyone enjoys hearing a particularly witty or wise turn of phrase or apt quotation. The right words can illuminate your thoughts in a most telling way and really lift your speech. But they must be the right words.

Try to avoid anything remotely negative, sneering or cynical. The problem is, many of the best quotes about love and marriage are negative, sneering or cynical. If you feel you really must use one or two, because they are so funny or so appropriate, reverse them to show the sentiment expressed most definitely does not apply to the happy couple.

’Some cynic once said happiness in marriage is just a lottery. He was wrong. I know (daughter and son-in-law) well, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt, they have both hit the jackpot!’

Quotations are intended to promote smiles and nods rather than a strong emotional reaction or helpless mirth. They may well describe some profound and universal truth, but they are not uniquely relevant to your circumstances and the background to this wedding. Not only that, by definition, they are someone else’s words, not your own. For these reasons, one or two quotes are plenty enough for any wedding speech.

Quoting people can also sound pompous. Just give a couple of appropriate lines and do it in a very casual way. If you are quoting someone famous, it is a good idea either to make it clear you had to look it up or give the impression you’re not absolutely sure of your source:

‘I am reminded of the words of William Shakespeare – reminded I should say by Barbara, who looked it up last night...’

‘Wasn’t it Lord Byron who wrote that ...?’

‘I think it was Thomas Hardy who observed that ...’

If you want to quote someone less well known, don’t mention him or her by name. If you do, the reaction will probably be an audible ‘Who?’ Rather, say something like: ‘Someone once said ...’ or ‘It has been said that...’

Alternatively, you could attribute the quotation to someone more famous. Oddly enough, this ploy will immediately increase your audience’s appreciation of those words of wit and wisdom. But make sure the person you name sounds as if he or she could have said that. As Bob Monkhouse didn’t say, The key is to cause an emotional reaction in your audience, not necessarily to be factually accurate.’

Here are just a few quotes on love and marriage, which may or may not be right for your speech. If they’re not quite in tune with what you’re trying to say or how you’re trying to say it, fast forward to Chapter 7s, where you’re certain to find one or two quotes that would work well in your speech.

To the happy couple

‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’ (Anon).

‘Let those love now who never loved before, And those who always loved now love the more.’ (Robert Burton).

‘Here’s to matrimony, the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented’ (Heinrich Heine).

Marriage

‘A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of a friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life’ (Joseph Addison).

Two things doth prolong thy life: A quiet heart and a loving wife’ (Anon).

The most important things to do in this world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you’ (Brendan Behan).

Wisdom

The essence of love is creative companionship, the fulfilment of one life by another’ (John Erskine).

There is no remedy for love but to love more’ (Henry D. Thoreau).

‘Let there be spaces in your togetherness ...

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.’ (Kahlil Gibran).