Weddings tend to be happifying events—a dance in which that most cherished pairing, mutual love, is married with a reciprocal commitment to honour that sacred bond.
Maybe it’s because of the sheer depth of devotion and allegiance being acknowledged and promised forevermore that it often falls on those making wedding speeches to deliver peals of laughter, or several, from the assembled guests — and, more importantly, the new bride and groom.
Not everyone is adept at public speaking. Fewer still are amusing enough to deliberately draw cachinnation from every corner of a wedding breakfast gathering. These are just some of the truths that keep wedding speakers awake at night while pondering the big day ahead. But help is at hand. There are experts who know the precise components of a good wedding speech and can advise on where and how the requisite skills can be honed. One such expert is Bridget Foster, president of Cork Toastmasters Club.
“Humour in a wedding speech is good,” she says, “provided you find out who your audience is before beginning to write the script. But no matter who the audience is, the right sort of humour is important. Humour can come from the stories told, provided they are personal stories relating to the bride and groom, and provided they are not AI-generated or found online.
“A wedding speech needs to be harmonious,” she continues. “So again, knowing your audience is absolutely key, as is not talking politics. At very formal weddings, there might be people aged from 9 months to 90 years, with lots of maiden aunts and local priests. Speakers should know or ask what the wedding vibe is before writing their speech.”
Foster says that if it’s an informal group of people who know each other well and share a sense of humour, then a speech containing risqué humour and references might be acceptable. But if that’s not the case, care must be taken with the speech content, as the whole point of making the speech is to make people feel good.
Given that weddings are usually happy occasions, Foster says it’s important that the speeches reflect that quality. As for how long a speech should be, she advises: “Usually there are at least three speeches, so five or six minutes is the absolute maximum length. The speechwriter should want the audience to be begging for more when they finish, not begging them to stop.”
Many people have a drink or two before making a wedding speech to calm their nerves. In Foster’s view, this is fine, provided they stop at one. “Most wedding speakers don’t realise the impact a few drinks might have on their speech. That’s why I recommend they have one pre-speech and wait until afterwards to have as many more as they wish.”
We’ve all seen the consequences of this advice being shunned. We don’t judge. It’s not unusual. People do their best. But when we consider Foster’s description of the impact it can have: “When a few drinks have been taken, all the hard work put into making a lovely, happy, harmonious speech can be lost in the delivery,” it’s hard to disagree.
Unsurprisingly, given her role at Cork Toastmasters, Foster is a gifted speaker. Naturally interesting and enthusiastic, she exudes feel-good, positive energy, the kind that’s contagious. It’s likely her prowess in public speaking was honed long before she joined Toastmasters, in her earlier years as a barrister and later as a captain in the British army. Either way, she’s a natural storyteller and entertaining to boot.
She delivers her sentences lightly peppered with winsome words. “Wazock” is the gem she chooses to describe what someone might become should they hit the booze. “Getting drunk can do that,” she says. “A wedding speaker should never become a wazock.”
We then talk about words rarely seen in print or heard in company. She tells me that at Toastmasters, they have a “word of the day,” which members may choose to include in their speeches. This, of course, is a worthwhile and smile-inducing tradition. After all, without endeavours to revive them, words like “whifflery” (meaning frivolity) and “withershins” (meaning counterclockwise) might forever be forgotten.
When I ask Foster about political correctness and its role in wedding speeches, she replies: “If you don’t want to upset your audience, you have to know your audience. Wedding talk and speeches should be harmonious, happy and heartfelt, without being overly sentimental.”
Recalling a military wedding she attended, she says: “Maybe it’s because military people often have a blacker sense of humour than most, that when a group of us — all friends of the bride — decided to run a sweepstake at this wedding, it fitted with the vibe of the day. To win, one of us had to guess how long the father of the bride would speak for.” Why him? “Because we knew him well, and we knew that public speaking wasn’t something he often did. We also knew that because he’d lost the notes for his speech, it was anyone’s guess how long he’d stand there speaking.
“There was a dish in the centre of our table,” she continues. “We each put money into that, agreeing that the winner would receive £100. Then, as soon as he began to speak, we all started timing him. We were looking at our watches, then smiling up at him. It was fun. He could see us signalling to him — with exaggerated hand gestures — to wind up his speech, in the hope that he’d stop at the exact time we’d guessed. As he continued talking past the time one of us had bet on, the loser would humorously mouth a ‘dammit’ at the rest of us.
“His speech was beautiful,” she remembers, and as she talks more, her words paint a picture so clear I can see, in my mind’s eye, the emotional father-of-the-bride and the relief he found in watching the high-spirited display of fun and games from some of his daughter’s closest friends —jollying him along and helping him keep the words flowing, that sentiment threatened to stall.
That wedding speech story leads to Foster sharing another: “It was the wedding of a friend who served in the military with me. Her father was in the military, as was her new husband.
“When you join the army, you go to a store where you receive your boots, uniform, and rifle, or whatever. There’s a special form. On that, you sign for everything you’ve been given. At this wedding, my friend’s father — while delivering his father-of-the-bride speech — passed a form to her new husband; one that he had specially made to look like those new recruits sign for the quartermaster when receiving their kits.
“On that slip of paper, he listed the new bride’s car, her student loan debt, her credit card debt, and more. Straight-faced, he told his new son-in-law that he had to sign it, which he did, to great cheers from all in attendance.”
Stories told and enjoyed, our conversation returns to guidance for speechmakers. “Don’t go on too long,” she says. “Don’t talk about things that happened at the stag night if that’s not conducive to marital harmony. Use humour kindly, for good, and never for bad. Remember that the focus of the speech should remain on the wedding bliss of the bride and groom, and never on the speaker. Never humiliate or upset anyone with your speech, and ensure that what you say will not break up a marriage that’s just been created. Just as nobody wants a fight at a wedding, nobody wants their speech to be the cause of a fight at a wedding.”
Foster is authentic, high-energy, and spontaneously lovely in her words. She’s also a superb speaker. If she isn’t already, she should be the poster person for Toastmasters worldwide. Given that anyone tasked with the honour of making a wedding speech would be delighted to have even a scintilla of her prowess and confidence, I ask how long in advance of a wedding someone should join their local Toastmasters to get help with their speech.
“At Cork Toastmasters, we meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month between September and May. Because that’s just twice a month, I think a good time to join is as soon as you know you are going to be making a speech. We are always happy to welcome new members.”