How to deliver your best man speech
Okay, you’ve got your speech and you know you’ve got the lines to steal the show. There’s just one thing you still need to do: deliver the speech.
Unquestionably, this is the part of the process that most best men find the most daunting. Fortunately, we have many years of public speaking experience so, to help you out, here is our guide to making it all go with a bang.
Writing the speech
The first thing you'll need to do is to check out our complete guide to writing a best man speech (here) but in summary:
- Keep it brief
- Don’t mention any previous girlfriends
- Don’t humiliate the groom
- Don’t mention what happened on the stag do
- Do say how beautiful the bridesmaids are, even if they aren’t
- Do say something that makes it clear that you don’t think the Groom is a complete twat
Before the speech
- Practice.
There is no substitute for getting up on your feet and rehearsing your speech. If you’ve run through the speech a number of times before the real thing, you’ll fell much more confident when you’re really doing it. To get the most from your practising, try to implement these tips whilst you’re doing it.
- Prepare
As well as rehearsing, try to run through exactly what you’ll be doing on the day. Put your suit on and sit down at a table. Imagine the groom speaking and introducing you. Imagine the nerves that you’ll be feeling. Take a deep breath, remember that you’ve practised the speech loads of times before, stand up, take a moment to look round the room and then begin.
This sort of visualisation technique may make you feel a bit stupid, but I will work. When it comes to the big day, your brain will be psychologically prepared to handle your nerves and you’ll know that you’ll be able to deal with them.
- Get a second opinion
Make sure you try it out on at least one person. In our experience, girls are better to practise on than guys because your mates will probably egg you on to say something you probably shouldn’t.
Ask them to tell you what they think of both the speech and your delivery – remember a bad delivery can ruin a good speech so getting feedback will really help you find out how to improve.
Delivering the speech
When you stand up, remember that you are the best man. Of all the people the groom could have chosen, he chose you. He believes you can do it, you’ve prepared well, you’ve got a cracking speech so knock em dead.
The most tempting thing to do when you have a script and you’re feeling nervous is simply to read from the page. Don’t. You will inevitably be nervous at the start, but once you get into your speech, you’ll actually be more relaxed if you keep you head up and engage with your audience. Once you see them laughing and enjoying the speech, you’ll start to enjoy it as well.
On the other hand, if you do read, there is a good chance that the jokes will go flat because the intonation of your voice won’t seem natural. Remember – if you’ve practised hard, the jokes will come out naturally.
This can make the difference between looking confident and looking like a wreck of a man. If you watch a professional public speaker note how they keep their body still, don’t move their heads much and only use their hands to emphasise what they’re saying. You should try to mimic them.
If you spend too much time looking at the floor, wildly looking round the room, shifting from side to side and waving your arms round like a mad man, people will stop concentrating on what you’re saying. Trust us – keep still and calm and people will pay more attention to your jokes and you’ll get bigger laughs.
- Take a breath
There are two occasions when you need to remember to breathe: before the punch line and after the punch line.
Before giving the killer line, just take a brief moment. Keep them waiting. But don’t pause for too long or they’ll think you’ve forgotten what the line is.
When you’ve delivered each punch line, let them laugh. Enjoy the moment. This is your moment so enjoy the payback.
Good luck!
