How to be a Best Man: The Speech
This is Ralph, and this is Allan.
Ralphs getting married and Allan's going to be his best man.
We get stand up comedian Dominic Holland, and author of Best Man for Dummies Dominic
Bliss to give them their top tips on how to make a great speech.
Best man is defined by his speech.
If he's stiff on the speech, that's the only thing that people will remember.
What I would say to anyone who's going to give a best man speech is, and I say this
as a man who has made his entire living, all his life, from speaking publicly, is that
it is completely normal to be nervous.
Don't think I'm going to have a few drinks and it will be fine.
My advice would be go in stone cold sober.
Everyone in the room wants you to do a good speech, they want to be entertained, like
a stand up gig but they're paid in, you better be funny, there there I'm free, they're really
willing you to work.
Well of course your speech will be the third of the speeches, after the father of the bride
and the groom so you don't want to go on too long because your audience will be getting
restless by then, but at the same time yours is expected to be the longest.
So I would say between seven and ten minutes is perfect.
Your official duty as the best man is to thank the newlyweds on behalf of the bridesmaids.
They don't get a chance to speak, so that's your official duty, so that can just be a
couple of lines, but make it sound genuine.
You've also got to congratulate the newlyweds themselves.
It's got to sound really heartfelt so that they really, genuinely know how happy you
are for them.
Make sure you stand up.
Be as big as you can be.
Look around, survey the room, confidence trick ok?
Maybe check out a few characters, always do a few name checks.
Name checks are good because you'll get a bit of a whoop from that table.
You know, involve the room bring them in.
I wouldn't really bother to try to write your own material.
If I were you, I would go to one of these books and sift through and glean some really
quite potent jokes that will work.
I'll give you an example.
This is a cast iron, belting joke.
The guy stands up, says I'm delighted that John is marrying Michelle.
Michelle's a gorgeous girl.
Everyone will clap, even if she's a minger, they'll all clap.
John's previous girlfriend wasn't like Michelle.
Marge wasn't as nice.
Marge was melancholy.
Leave a bit of a pause, body like a melon, face like a collie.
And that is such a funny joke.
People will laugh.
Laugh, laugh, laugh.
And then off the back of that laugh, you know, you can just ease in.
It's important you vary the pace of your speech.
You don't want to deliver it all in one long monotone, that will be really dull.
So you can speed it up at certain points, you can slow it down at certain points.
It depends on the content.
Public speaking is a trick.
It's a confidence trick ok?
Every comic, every speaker is nervous, but you think that they're not.
If ever you've seen me do stand up, I've been very nervous before I've gone one but when
you watch me, I'm not nervous, but I am.
There's a confidence trick.
So what I would say to you is you can't underestimate the power of the pause.
Alright?
So if you get onstage and you look for an applause and then sort of let the applause
really die down, and then give a bit of a pause.
The audience will really think oh this guy's really confident, but don't pause too long
because then they'll think he's forgotten, and then they'll get tense.
And when the audience gets tense, you'll get more nervous and then it's a spiral down.
If you're talking about the bride and groom, look at the bride and groom.
Engage them in your speech.
If you're talking about the father of the bride, look at him and engage him.
Or maybe one of the ushers.
It's important to bring your audience into your speech, so that they don't just see one
boring talking head.
The audience would appreciate a funny, irreverent speech rather than a vulgar one, even if it's
funny.
You may want to speak to the catering staff to make sure they fill up the glasses before
your speech starts.
Have cards.
Try to have the cards as delineated as you can.
So if you are going to speak for nine minutes, maybe have nine cards.
By this stage it's going to be obvious that your the best man.
But a lot of the audience might not know why you're the best man.
What your relationship to the groom is.
Tell them who you are.
My name's Tom Holland.
I was at University with John.
Delighted to be here as his best man, bit surprised, well actually I'm not.
John's not got many mates.
Get a laugh there straight away, that was just an ad lib.
For any public speaking you can't prepare enough, and the idea would be that you're
so prepared that you don't need to ad lib.
However, if the speech is going well and you feel that you're in the zone, then a bit of
ad libbing might add some real energy.
And if it's real and heartfelt then that's going to be a really nice way to end.
If it's not going well with prepared stuff, stay well clear of the ad libbing.
What you want people to do is to have laughed for the bride and groom to have laughed perhaps
at themselves, the male and female thing, you have to show affection and warmth towards
them, their union, you're happy for them to be unified, it's going to be successful, you're
wishing them well.
And then you look around because you're the alpha male in the room, and it's now time
to start drinking, and get shagging.