Wedding toasts are one of the most difficult parts of a wedding to get right. Too long, and everyone falls asleep or starts mumbling. Too short, and people wonder if there’s something wrong.
According to The Telegraph, the key to giving the ideal toast is to do your preparation. You should write your speech out in full and then condense it onto cards so you aren’t reading it out word for word.
If you’ve been tasked with the job of preparing a wedding toast, here are the essential tips you need to know.
Get the Basics Right
Breaking it down to its bare minimum, a wedding toast needs to be just that – a toast to the bride and groom. It should, therefore, be an opportunity for everyone to acknowledge the wedding has taken place and to raise a glass to the happy couple.
But of course a wedding toast usually ends up being much more than that. Whoever’s giving the toast – often the best man, although others can be asked – will want to regale the guests with a few jokes and maybe make everyone teary-eyed at the same time.
Top tips include keeping it short, but not curt, keeping the humour well-meaning and light, making it personal, but not intimately so, and keeping it simple.
If you’re including literary references or quotations, make sure they’re appropriate – references from Romeo and Juliet, for instance, may not be ideal.
Don’t Go Over the Top
Reminding everyone about an embarrassing story relating to the groom has its place, but remember not to make it too cringe-worthy.
And now is not an ideal time to tell family and friends something they knew nothing about – keep to well-known family stories or commonly-known traits. Your aim should be to make people laugh in recognition, not recoil in horror.
Making fun of the bride’s mother’s outfit or informing everyone about the time the groom engaged the services of a prostitute in Amsterdam will not go down well.
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Wherever the wedding is, here’s hoping the speeches are remembered for all the right reasons. The best ones make the guests laugh, cry, then laugh again – leaving them in a good frame of mind.
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